Province Ignored Early Warnings on OSAP Fraud
AI-generated image · Bay Street Wire
Documents reveal Career Colleges Ontario flagged suspicious activity years before the government slashed student grants.
Documents show the Ontario government was alerted to "suspicious" Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) activity at several career colleges as early as January 2023, according to reporting by The Canadian Press and CBC Toronto.
Career Colleges Ontario, led by executive director Kate Bartz, held four meetings with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities in 2023 to discuss indicators of suspicious activity. By the following year, the association requested that the ministry refer specific concerns to law enforcement. While the ministry reportedly contacted police, the specific details of those concerns remain redacted in court records.
In a January 2025 letter, Bartz informed the ministry that 10 schools saw anomalous OSAP application increases averaging 855 per cent between 2022 and 2024. One institution's applications surged nearly 2,700 per cent, rising from 107 in 2022 to 2,992 in 2024. Bartz noted that reports from Financial Aid Officers suggested patterns of misuse of funds and eligibility misrepresentation.
Freedom-of-information data obtained by The Canadian Press reveals that seven career colleges received approximately $385 million in provincial grants and $137 million in federal grants for 2024-25. The provincial grant total for those seven schools equaled the amount given to all of Ontario's publicly funded colleges that year.
Approximately 18 months after receiving this data, the government disqualified five schools from OSAP due to "compromised participation" in asynchronous online programs. Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn subsequently announced broad OSAP changes, including barring career college students from grants and reducing grant amounts for university and public college students.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Interim Liberal leader John Fraser criticized the government's delayed response, with Stiles stating students are being punished for government failures. Minister Quinn's spokesperson, Dayna Smockum, maintained that oversight is robust and that the province has zero tolerance for "bad actors."