I appreciate the member from Nickel Belt’s question. Actually, I think I first proposed this two years ago: to pay the tolls of truckers on the 407. At that time, part of the rationale was somebody had just landed an airplane on the 407, it was so underutilized.

It seems to make sense to me: Why would you build a highway that’s exactly the same area—just a little bit north of the 407—and spend 10-plus billion dollars on it, when you could pay the tolls of truckers for the next 30 years for less than a quarter of that price and actually relieve gridlock right now? That’s the most fiscally responsible, environmentally responsible way to benefit our economy and end gridlock.

You talked about costs. Let’s not even talk about future costs for a second; let’s talk about costs from just last year. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the climate crisis costs Canadians $3.1 billion in insurable losses. They estimate that uninsurable losses were three times that: almost $10 billion in one year. That cost every household $720 in this country.

The other thing the government doesn’t talk about when it comes to carbon pricing is that, actually, eight out of 10 Ontarians receive more money back in the rebate than they actually pay into the carbon price. And the Ontarians who benefit the most from that rebate are low- and middle-income Ontarians. So it is true: There are some people who do pay more because they pay more in tax than their rebate. Those are the wealthiest people in the province.

So, they don’t have a plan, and the plan they have actually takes money out of our pockets.

I want to just ask you—because I can’t find a climate plan from this government. Is there one? I think this government has absolutely no policies, no programs that are credible or serious or meet the moment when it comes to the urgency of the climate crisis in this province. I mean, we had the insurance bureau talking about the losses that people will be facing in their property. We have forest fire seasons that start earlier and earlier. We have a government that, instead of taking action, has, like you said, this performative bill that makes it look like they’re doing anything.

Can you point to any climate plan at all that this government has?

I was very interested: Our caucus had brought forward an opposition day motion focusing on making sure that truck traffic got to use Highway 407 so that we relieve congestion. You actually were there. You voted in favour of the NDP motion. Could you share with the House how the Conservatives looked at that motion and how, when we present them with immediate solutions to problems that need to be addressed, they look the other way?

It’s now time for questions.

Is it the pleasure of House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion that the question be now put, say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion that the question be now put, please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

A recorded vote being required, it will be deferred to the next instance of deferred votes.

Vote deferred.

Resuming the debate adjourned on May 6, 2024, on the motion for third reading of Bill 166, An Act to amend the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act / Projet de loi 166, Loi modifiant la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités.

Madam Speaker, it’s not a point of order. I just move that the question now be put.

Interjections.

Questions, please.

Questions, please. The Minister of Colleges and Universities.

During pre-budget consultations, the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs had the opportunity to hear from a number of different post-secondary institutions who were deeply concerned about this government’s cuts. I believe that when we look at Bill 166, it really is masking some of the cuts this government has made. In fact, this government would talk about the billion dollars it has put within the system, but that is nowhere near enough to make up for the cuts that they have made.

Would the member agree that this bill is an example of yet another distraction from this government’s disastrous anti-education agenda?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very happy to stand today to speak once again about Bill 166, the Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act.

This bill contains historical changes that will help our students. Our students are the future of Ontario, the future of Canada, and this bill would support students while creating accountability. We, as a government, will only be viewed as successful if the next generation remembers us fondly with bills which made their life better. Madam Speaker, tomorrow’s professionals are students of today.

As the father of two young men, Dr. David, and soon-to-be-dentist Christopher, who are about to complete their terms and come into the workforce, but also as a professor who has been teaching college students since 2007 to date, over 17 years, I have met hundreds and thousands of students. I taught hundreds, proudly to say that one of my former students sits here as a member of this chamber as one of our colleagues today.

I can’t claim that I understand many of the challenges students go through in the post-secondary sector. It is our duty to try to pave the way for them to be successful as students and, more importantly, as future citizens, as professionals and those who will be able to compete in Ontario, in Canada and anywhere around the world.

Bill 166, the Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act, will support students while creating accountability for actions, which is the third reading debate, so many of those details are already covered. As this is my last chance to speak for this bill, I want to address the bill from the perspective of its reasoning and importance and how it will impact our students.

I know that many of our universities and colleges are already providing mental health supports for their students. As the minister mentioned, five colleges—George Brown, Centennial, Humber, Seneca and Sheridan—already have programs, two of which I was faculty member of. They have already partnered to pool their expertise and resources as they support students. I know first-hand, having been faculty of at least two of them for many years, that this bill is raising the bar. It would mandate and hold university and college administrations accountable to support students.

This is a good start. We want to standardize it, make it mainstream, not only at some of the institutions. Every post-secondary institution should have comprehensive supports for students’ mental health. Mr. Speaker, we believe and are acting on the belief that mental health is health.

Our government allocated $32 million for 2023-24 in mental health to support post-secondary students through grants like the Mental Health Services Grant and the Mental Health Workers Grant. Mr. Speaker, our government was the first government to appoint an associate minister especially for mental health, because we believe that mental health is health.

We are, as a government, trying to remove the stigma around mental health. Our students are already under the severe stress of exams, competitions, uncertainty, fear of the future and fear of failure. Some students develop mental illnesses, and unfortunately, in some cases, they even commit suicide. Losing one life is too much. Those losses could be prevented, because if they could be easily recognized and get the right attention and medication early enough, they could have been good, proactive citizens living with us today.

I believe this bill is an important step to mandate and hold educational institutions accountable. We want to keep an eye on and care for our most vulnerable and valuable, our students, our kids.

The other part of that bill is talking about freedom of speech in universities and colleges. It is important to create environments where our students can freely express their opinions and exchange those opinions with other students. But at the same time, we need to be very fair regarding hate speech, bullying and any other form of discrimination against students. This is not freedom of speech; this is discrimination, and it could affect the mental health of students. We need to create an environment that is inclusive, safe for our students.

With that said, I very strongly recommend full support from both sides—our colleagues in the opposition—to support that bill, which will benefit our students, which will benefit our universities and colleges in their way to help their students, monitor their students, and take the responsibility in protecting our students.

We said we are trying to move the bar, to raise the bar to make sure that our students are having some mental health attention from the institution that they are relying on, that they are going to every day. This is the only way we can monitor their mental health. If there is more money needed in the future, we’ll see. If it’s through the grants program, all the institutions should be able to build the programs to monitor the—

Further debate?

I recognize the member for Mississauga–Erin Mills.

I wanted just to ask one more question, kind of building off what the opposition member had mentioned. He said that he thought that we were the highest tuition in Canada. We’re actually fourth now because of the tuition cuts this government has made. But I wanted to ask the member about the tuition freeze and what the impact is going to be on students to be able to access post-secondary education.

It is a real privilege to talk about An Act to amend the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act.

I would like to speak to a specific university in northern Ontario that is really dear to everybody in northern Ontario, including myself, and this is the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University, l’École de médecine du Nord de l’Ontario. More specifically, I would like to send a huge thank you to its president, vice-chancellor, dean and CEO, and this is Dr. Sarita Verma. We owe her so, so much. She has announced that she is leaving her position but has agreed to stay with us until a new president, vice-chancellor, chancellor, dean and CEO is found.

I want people to understand what the Northern Ontario School of Medicine—what was the strategy behind this. It was created in 2002 as a special purpose university to reverse the chronic physician shortages in the north. They started with a social accountability mandate to improve the health of the people of northern Ontario, with a focus on Indigenous people, francophones, as well as people who live in remote and rural northern Ontario. They were created as a not-for-profit corporation, first affiliated with Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and Laurentian University in Sudbury, but April 1, 2022, they became an independent medical university. They are the only stand-alone medical university in all of Canada.

For the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, the entire region of northern Ontario is their campus. Unlike traditional medical schools, Northern Ontario School of Medicine learners are placed in over 90 different communities throughout the year, working hard to serve isolated and remote communities where they gain experience and confidence to work independently and without timely access to medical specialists that we don’t have in northern Ontario.

The school of medicine has two major campuses—they call these their main campuses—one in Sudbury, one in Thunder Bay. They use those as headquarters, I would say, for the administration and they house their full-time faculty, but the faculty deliver the medical education in-person and virtually wherever their students are. They are placed on a territory that makes 800 square kilometres, Speaker, all in northern Ontario. Northern Ontario is their campus. It’s a very unique model, and it works.

Did you know, Speaker, that 88% of the physicians who complete both undergraduate and postgraduate residency at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine remain in northern Ontario? Some 28% remain in remote and rural communities. If you look right now, for half of the people in northern Ontario who currently have access to a primary care physician, it’s a physician who graduated from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.

The success of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine rests, I would say, on a system that’s called a distributed community engaged learning model—DCEL—which basically features partnerships and collaborations with over 135 organizations in 90 different northern communities. They have over 1,800 clinical faculty and you can find them throughout, from the smallest rural northern community to the biggest centres of North Bay, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Timmins and Sault Ste. Marie. They are everywhere. They prepare their graduates to work in rural and northern underserved communities. And they’re very successful.

They have a 100% match for their residency program. They have a 100% success rate for the Part I exam of the MCCQE. They have the highest proportion of graduating medical students who choose family medicine. In the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, it’s 55% of graduates, compared to 28% in the rest of Canada. They have the highest proportion that go into rural family practice and also have the highest proportion of Indigenous students. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine has graduated 9,002 graduates. Of those, 72 were Indigenous—so we now have 72 Indigenous physicians—and 180 of them were francophone. They also had 827 residents who completed their training through the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and 190 registered dietitians.

As you can tell, I am really proud of what they have done. I want people to understand that a huge part of their success is their socially accountable admissions process. Northern Ontario School of Medicine students are intentionally selected to be from northern Ontario because they are more likely to come back and practise in northern Ontario. So 90% of their students come from northern Ontario, 9% come from rural and remote other parts of Canada, 25% self-identify as francophone and 16% self-identify as Indigenous.

They’re also an economic engine. Because of all those students coming to northern Ontario, there are huge financial benefits to the communities where the students come.

They have been chosen to see an expansion. When they first started—and I’m going by memory. I think we started with 56. They are now at 64. That is, they take on 64 new medical students every year and there is a plan to bring that up to 108 by 2028.

There are also challenges to doing this. They have come to Queen’s Park. They have shared those challenges. Northern Ontario needs at least 384 full-time-equivalent physicians. We need 180 specialists. We need over 110 more physicians to go into rural areas.

As you all know, 25% of the population in northern Ontario does not have access to primary care, does not have a family physician. This number is growing rapidly, as 50% of the rural physicians, doctors, who exist have announced retirement within the next five years. So, the shortage of physicians to help train will be something that needs to be looked at as we bring in more and more physicians.

There are quite a few other barriers to the expansion of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. There are many areas where the population is so underserved that it is a very unattractive environment to train learners. The compensation and physician payment model for clinical work is called the Rural and Northern Physician Group Agreement, RNPGA. It hasn’t changed since the year 2000, so it is no longer attracting physicians to the north. Of the 38 RNPGAs we have, 14 of them require three to seven more physicians and 24 of them require one to two more physicians.

So in order for the expansion to be successful, they really have to look at what medical education needs. They have asked for one-time funding. They have asked for an extension of the family medicine teaching unit. Family medicine teaching units are funded and exist in southern Ontario, but are not funded in northern Ontario, but we would need them in order to make sure that we can graduate all of the physicians that go to school through the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.

The situation at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University is life-changing for the people of the north. They are graduating physicians who come and work in the north, who are comfortable working in the north. They know the situation, and they need to be supported. Thank you, Speaker, for allowing me to brag a little bit about a university that is very near and close to my heart and the hearts of many people in northern Ontario.

Coming back to the bill: Basically, Bill 166 does three things. The first one is, “Every college and university is required to have a student mental health policy that describes the programs, policies, services and supports available at the college or university in respect of student mental health.” This is a very noble end. Do we want mental health to be accessible to every student? Yes, absolutely. The pandemic, which I hope is behind us, was hard on everybody. It was especially hard on young people: young people going to school, young people now attending our colleges and universities. Many of them have put the stigma of mental health behind them. They’re not afraid to say that they’re having a mental health problem and reach out for help.

Unfortunately, all that the bill does is to say, “You have to have a student mental health policy that describes the programs, the policies, the services and the support available.” We need more than to have a policy. We need to have money to support the programs so that you can have services, you can have mental health programs available to every college and university student. So the end goal is really good, but to get there, we need to talk about money.

When we talk about money, we can’t help but look at the blue panel—is this what it was called? I sometimes get it confused—that was done. Basically the Ministry of Colleges and Universities asked for an expert panel to look at what needed to be done and have funded half of what the expert panel recommended be funded. So I’m really happy that every college and university will have a policy that says we need to make mental health available to their students, but if they don’t have the resources to have social workers, psychologists, nurses and everybody else to provide that care, we are no further ahead than where we are now.

I would say that many of the groups that came to present told us that they already had a mental health strategy in place and what they needed was resources to not only continue what they have but build upon what they have because, for many of them, there’s a wait-list to access services. There are limited hours, limited times of the week and limited months of the year where they are able to actually provide those mental health services, and this is not acceptable.

Mental health should be available. For many young people, going to college or going to university is a stressful time. They don’t give you a college degree or a university degree easily. You have to work really hard to get there. It’s often difficult on your mental health. Having the mental health supports that you need to increase your chances of success is something that we absolutely support, and I would have loved to see the dollars being allocated as well, but unfortunately this was not the case.

Then, when we look at the second ask of the bill, as I said, the blue-ribbon panel had recommended an urgent $2.5-billion investment over three years at a minimum just to keep colleges and universities running as they were, and that was before the international student cap was announced. They said, “Just to keep what we have—not to build, not to meet the needs, not to decrease the wait-list, not to make the services available more hours a day, more days a week, more months out of the year. None of this. Just to maintain what we had, we needed $2.5 billion over three years.” They got half of that.

Then we all know that when the international student cap was announced, it was another $1.5-billion decrease in money that is not coming from international students because the number of international students getting visas to come into Ontario has decreased by that amount.

The second part of the bill says that every college and university is required to have policies and rules to address and combat racism and hate, including but not limited to anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Again, many of the groups that came shared with us that they already have those committees in place. They also talked about—that the government could use the powers of the Anti-Racism Act, which is an act passed in 2017 to re-establish the Anti-Racism Directorate subcommittees. I know that in my part of the province there was an anti-Indigenous racism committee that was doing very good work. Unfortunately, this no longer exists, but the bill is still there. All we need is the political will, I will tell you, to bring those back.

But is this something that the NDP supports? Yes, absolutely. There is no room for hate. There is no place for racism. It has to stop. It hurts a lot of people. Nothing good comes of it. We know how to do this, Speaker. It needs to get done.

Then, the third part of the bill is, “The minister is authorized to issue directives in relation to the information to be provided about the costs associated with attendance at the college or university.” Any of you who have children in college and university, you will all know that you pay the tuition, and then you realize, “Oh, look at this. I need to go”—I can tell you that when my daughter went in to become an electrician, she and I went to the store that was recommended with a list of tools that neither one of us knew how to pronounce, never mind what they looked like, so we gave that list to the good person at the front, who gave us a list of tools that my daughter needed to buy in order to be able to continue.

But none of that was included with the price you pay to register. It would have been good to know and to plan. We’re a family where we were able to afford it, but it was about 600 bucks’ worth of tools that we had to buy in order for my daughter to continue. She is an industrial electrician, and I’ll tell you that she still uses those tools, but at the time it was like a bit of a shock to have to go to a store and buy all of this so that she could become an electrician, which is what she wanted to do.

I’m sharing this to say that this is another thing that we support. Should parents, students, whether you’re in college or university, know all of the auxiliary fees that you have to pay up front? Yes. Again, when people came and did deputations, it was, “When will you be made aware of how much they are?” And they vary quite a bit from one college to the next, from one university to the next.

It would be good when people make their selections to not only know how much tuition is going to cost, but also all of the other fees that you will have to pay, because that could influence. But if that information only becomes available once you have been accepted in the college or in the university—it could be more useful if it was more upfront, so I would say the people who came and did deputations were in favour; they were just asking for a wee bit of tweaking so that this information is available way upfront, on a website, so that anybody who is thinking of doing an application for any courses or class in any college or university knows all of this before you apply.

I think my time is up. Thank you, Speaker.

You know, in 2018, when the member was elected, one of the first things that this Conservative government did was rip up a grant program that existed to help students from low-income families go to university in an affordable way. We continue to see families—bright, ambitious students—facing massive financial barriers to go to university or colleges. Again, students in Ontario pay the highest tuitions in all of Canada.

Does the member believe that financial barriers to education should exist for our students?

Thank you for your response.

The member from Humber River–Black Creek, please.

The Minister of Colleges and Universities, please.

Further debate?

Thank you to my colleague. Despite the fact that this question is not related to the inclusion environment in the campus or preventing discrimination or supporting freedom of speech—you are talking about the OSAP changes, which is—actually, we did put OSAP where it was. Before the election, the previous Liberal government tried to prepare for the election by bribing voters, saying, “We’ll give you free programs.” When we took over, we just put back OSAP as a loan system, which students can—every student can make use of OSAP and pay back the money in 20 years, which is—

There are three main ones: Collège Boréal, which is a French college; Cambrian College, which is an English college; and Laurentian University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. I would say what we see the most in my area is really targeted towards Indigenous people. There is still a lot of systemic discrimination facing First Nations, Métis—we don’t have too many Inuit people, but we have a lot of First Nations and Métis who come to our community. They often come from First Nations, where they were surrounded by other First Nations people, and it is a hard transition to come to Sudbury, either to Collège Boréal—

Do colleges and universities need resources? Do they want to support their students’ mental health? Yes, absolutely; they all want to. They all want their students to succeed. That’s why they exist. And they do a great job of it, but without the resources, it is really difficult. When the blue-ribbon panel tells us that you need a minimum of $2.5 billion and they get only half of this; when we lose another $1.5 billion because of the international students not allowed in—then where are those resources going—

For some, they will face discrimination. For some, they will face barriers to transition. But I must say that both colleges and both universities, as well as l’Université de Sudbury, know about this. They try to support them, but unfortunately, yes, some students still face discrimination.

Report continues in volume B.

Thank you to my colleague from Nickel Belt for her presentation. I was particularly interested in the comments about community mental health resources.

With Bill 166, the title seems to suggest that this will provide greater supports for students.

But I think of my riding, where we have great institutions like Western University, King’s University College, Huron University College, Brescia University College—unfortunately, which will be eventually amalgamated. This represents a massive influx of individuals into the riding of London North Centre, and it puts a tremendous strain on the already meagre community mental health resources that are available.

Will Bill 166 adequately address the huge lack of community mental health resources for students?

I want to ask a little bit about consultation. During the time we spent with delegates, there was a concern that we didn’t have a lot of data, consultation with different groups. Folks brought that feedback. Can you speak a little bit about your impressions related to that?

I want to thank the member opposite for her comments and for her boasting about her relationship in her community with the post-secondary education institution. I know in my riding of Simcoe–Grey, Georgian College has a big presence there, and I was a part-time professor there and enjoyed it. Those institutions are a critical part of our communities, but they also have their own bureaucracy and are in charge of their campuses.

We know recently, from unfortunate geopolitical events, that racism and hate has been a growing issue on campuses. We have 120 nationalities and over 300 distinct languages represented at our post-secondary education institutions. I’m wondering if the member opposite can talk about the importance of these institutions enforcing anti-hate rules and regulations, particularly in light of what we’re seeing. U of T recently just cancelled their graduation because they have an encampment on their facility, and I’d like the member to speak about the importance of universities and post-secondary schools stepping up to enforce anti-hate.

I’d like to congratulate the member, as a mother, when you’re talking about your daughter and how exciting it is she’s an electrician—and I’m sure it was probably very intimidating for both of you going into the shop to buy the tools. So I understand that you agree on that piece of the legislation, having that transparency over the cost of all associated materials with a course.

But I wanted to know: I know that you’re on committee and you heard from the students who spoke there. Can you tell us what you heard from students about the issues they were dealing with on campus with anti-hate and maybe students you heard from in your own community?