Empowering Tomorrow: The OCUFA Blueprint for Revitalizing Ontario’s Public Universities

Third, while Ontario needs international students and their vital contribution to Page 3 of 26 the richness of the postsecondary experience, the federal government has capped the number of international students over the next two years. [...] In the last 10 years the number of valid international study permits has risen by 280 per cent in Ontario compared to 118 per cent in the rest of the country. [...] In the case of China, troubled relations have combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the number of study permit approvals for Chinese students from 90,006 in 2018 to 52,474 in 2022. [...] For example, at the start of the 2023-24 academic year, students at Canadore College in North Bay protested the lack of housing available to international students and 25 international students there slept in a tent by the road due to the lack of housing. [...] A substantial increase in funding for Ontario universities—rising to the level of the national average as outlined in section one—would put Ontario’s universities in a position of financial health that would enable them to effectively contribute to the provincial economy and to their local economies as well.