Minister backtracks on whether OSAP audit will be made public as Ford government accused of ignoring fraud - Toronto Star

Ontario will now 'consider' releasing part of an independent audit examining potential fraud at private career colleges.

Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities Nolan Quinn speaks during question period at the Ontario legislature last month.

The Ontario government will now “consider” releasing part of an independent audit looking into potential OSAP fraud at private career colleges after post-secondary minister Nolan Quinn earlier insisted it would be kept under wraps.

“If there are opportunities to release information from the KPMG audit that do not compromise a potential OPP investigation, an auditor general investigation or the ministry’s efforts to obtain evidence, recover funds and hold bad actors accountable, we will consider doing so,” his press secretary said in a statement sent out later Tuesday.

The move came as opposition critics continued to press the government on the growing controversy, while also urging some relief for students left in limbo with the government’s temporary freeze on OSAP funds.

Students “have been caught in the crosshairs of this premier’s private college debacle,” said NDP Leader Marit Stiles, who urged the government not to punish all for the actions of what appears to be a handful of colleges.

“Students are being hung out to dry while this government is clearly in panic mode trying to cover their tracks.”

Quinn cut off student aid to all private colleges last month amid mounting concerns — even referring some of the audit’s early findings to the Ontario Provincial Police. 

“You’ll see actions with our ministry after that audit is complete,” Quinn told reporters earlier Tuesday. “You’ll see instances of schools possibly not being renewed to be able to provide career college training in Ontario.”

In the interim, the temporary blanket ban on OSAP access has left career college students wondering how they will pay tuition or afford rent. They continue to wait for the government to fulfil its promise to provide alternative loans for their studies until the audit is completed and it introduces a new, more stringent application process in the new year.

The minister initially removed private colleges from access to non-repayable OSAP grants, then announced some were ineligible for OSAP loans, before enacting the sector-wide pause.

He has also warned that all predominantly online programs will be permanently banned from student aid funds.

“At this time, we do not have assurances from the audit team that the issues are not more widespread, leaving us with no choice but to pause OSAP payments to all private institutions to protect taxpayer dollars and hold bad actors accountable,” said Bianca Giacoboni, Quinn’s press secretary, in a statement to the Star.

“We understand this is creating uncertainty for students and are working quickly to develop options for low-interest, third-party loans facilitated by financial institutions to help students through this period of transition.”

Between 2023-24 and 2024-25, the amount of provincial OSAP grants to career colleges nearly doubled, to about $1 billion in the latter year going to about 240 eligible schools, The Canadian Press has reported. 

(In 2024-25, seven private colleges alone received $385 million in OSAP — the same amount that students in all of the province’s public colleges received that same year, it also found.)

Opposition critics said the government “turned a blind eye” to what was going on in the sector for years, while allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be disbursed. 

“I’m not sure how that member can say we’ve turned a blind eye when since 2020, we’ve done over 3,200 OSAP inspections into individual OSAP accounts,” Quinn said in the legislature.

But Stiles said “they were warned, they knew that there were red flags all over this, and they chose to ignore it. That minister chose to ignore it. This government’s incompetence is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, and it is burying the next generation in debt.”

Quinn said the government will bring forward new legislation “to ensure that we have the appropriate guardrails to push back against the bad actors that have defrauded the Ontario taxpayer.”

The audits have uncovered “third parties completing coursework on behalf of students in a single day,” he said. “We’ve seen exams done in six minutes. These supposed students couldn’t even identify the institution they attended or the course they took ... this is very serious.”

There is no clear timeline for the KPMG audit.

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser accused the government of “using KPMG to try and hide. The government’s trying to hide that it gave away hundreds of millions of dollars.”

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Kristin Rushowy is a Toronto-based senior writer covering education for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @krushowy.