A Premier Speaks of Jail, and Students Wait in the Balance

In the legislature at Queen's Park, the language rarely rises to the declarative. Politicians speak in the conditional, the passive, the carefully hedged. So when a premier says someone is "going to jail," the room takes notice. On Tuesday, Doug Ford offered exactly that—a statement of expectation, perhaps even of intent, delivered with the bluntness that has become his signature.

"I hope to God these bad actors are going to jail," Ford said, referring to what he described as "fraudsters" within the private career college system . The province paused Ontario Student Assistance Program payments to all 242 private career colleges in early October, following preliminary findings from a KPMG audit that raised "serious concerns" about the integrity of the system . The matter has been referred to the Ontario Provincial Police, though the force has not confirmed whether a criminal investigation will proceed .

The concerns outlined by the government are specific: common ownership between career colleges and immigration services firms, inadequate student validation, inability to verify course enrolment and outcomes, and unusually high concentrations of OSAP applications from the same geographic locations . Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said the ministry had been monitoring complaints since late 2024 and launched targeted inspections in July 2025 before engaging KPMG in August 2026 . "It's because of serious allegations, criminal allegations against bad actors, that's why we paused OSAP," Quinn said in his own defense. "We're respecting taxpayer dollars" .

The pause has caught students in its wake. Opposition MPPs spent much of question period calling for Quinn's resignation, arguing the government acted too slowly on warnings and then overcorrected by cutting off aid to all students rather than targeting the institutions under scrutiny . Interim Liberal leader John Fraser said students were "approved, enrolled and abandoned" by the government . Ford acknowledged feeling "terrible" for what he called honest students "trapped" in the system, but rejected calls to remove his minister, saying Quinn has done "an incredible job" .

The government's response has evolved in stages. In May 2026, it issued notices of non-renewal to six campuses and suspended their OSAP eligibility. Three Academy of Learning locations, sharing a parent company, have since been barred from OSAP until at least 2030 and are challenging the decision in court . Data obtained through a freedom-of-information request showed one Academy of Learning location on Bay Street grew from 996 OSAP students in 2021-22 to 7,435 in 2024-25, qualifying for more than $108 million in provincial grants that year . The schools have said they have invested in compliance and that some students may not have responded to verification attempts because they believed them to be scam calls .

For now, OSAP remains paused for private career colleges. The government has said it will not resume until a strengthened validation process is in place, with proposed measures including caps on OSAP-funded enrollment, exclusion of predominantly online programs, and stronger student identification controls . Third-party loans through financial institutions are being explored as an interim option .

The investigation continues, and no charges have been announced. What remains clear is the tension at the heart of the file: the desire to protect public funds and the students who rely on them, and the difficulty of doing both at once.

Images accompanying this report are AI-generated and do not depict the individuals or institutions referenced.

Sources: Global News, The Canadian Press, Ontario Newsroom, CBC News