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This week marks an intensified push for student mobilization in the wake of planned cuts to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced on Feb. 12 that post-secondary students starting next fall will receive only 25 per cent of their funding as non-payable grants, with the remaining 75 per cent coming as loans. Previously, students could receive up to 85 percent of their funding as grants and 15 percent as loans.
Additionally, a two per cent annual tuition increase would be implemented over the next three years, ending a tuition freeze that has been in place since 2019.
Delegates from the Toronto Metropolitan Students’ Union (TMSU), the Toronto Metropolitan Graduate Students’ Union (TMGSU), the Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario (CFS), the Performance Student Union (PSU), and the Palin Foundation hosted a town hall at the Student Campus Centre on Feb. 26.
Organizers added extra chairs before the meeting began as students filled the room, with more attendees standing along the walls as the town hall progressed, gathering to plan how to “fight back and continue supporting students’ needs,” per an email sent to TMU students.
CFS hopes to put pressure on the provincial government before the legislature resumes sitting for the 2026 spring session on March 23, chairperson Cyrielle Ngeleka told attendees. CFS is hosting the Hands Off Our Education Rally at Queen’s Park on March 4, in collaboration with the Central Student Association from the University of Guelph.
“There’s a necessity to bring students, parents, all people who are concerned about the destruction of education right now into one place to channel that anger, to channel that frustration,” said Ngeleka.
In response to student complaints regarding the OSAP changes, Ford told students not to pick “basket-weaving courses” and to choose programs that give in-demand jobs like healthcare, the trades and STEM occupations, at a press conference on Feb. 17.
Fourth-year performance production student Kali Napier attended the town hall and hopes to attend Wednesday’s rally. She says she found Ford’s comments about non-STEM programs to be insensitive.
“Art does stimulate the economy, just not in the ways in which Doug Ford thinks,” said Napier. “Just downplaying it, calling it basket-weaving courses, too. But what if someone wanted a weave basket? What if I wanted a weave basket?”
She said she believes the town hall was effective and that the passion from the speakers and the audience represents a step in the right direction.
“We just need to organize and make sure that we are all on the same page to move forward,” she said.
In preparation, Toronto’s Student Mobilization Committee (SMC), a cross-campus group that advocates for free and democratic education for all, announced on Instagram that they will host an open meeting on March 2. TMSU will also run outreach, distributing leaflets and petitions, and will provide a free breakfast before the rally at the Student Campus Centre.
Following the rally, organizing efforts will continue. From March 9 to 13, a campus week of action will take place to mobilize students across post-secondary campuses. Outreach and materials production will then continue from March 16 to 20, leading up to another rally at Queen’s Park, expected to take place between March 22 and 27.
“The removal of the tuition freeze is cause for deep concern for the undergraduate students that TMSU represents,” said Sally Lee, one of the interim co-executive directors, reading out a public statement during the town hall.
“This will saddle the next generation of graduates with further debt, disproportionately impacting young people from middle and low-income backgrounds, unable to rely on generational wealth to provide a financial cushion, just as they begin to embark on their careers as young adults,” Lee said.
Walied Khogali Ali, TMGSU general manager, says he believes the OSAP changes can be reversed if people show up to rallies and engage in the various outreach efforts.
“It’s all of us or none of us! It’s all or none of us! It’s all of us or none of us!” Ali had the crowded room chant.
“We’ve got to bring this energy to the streets,” he said. “We’ve got to remind this government who’s boss, and it’s us, it’s not them. They were elected by the people of Ontario, and that means they need to listen to us.”
However, some students believe more action, specifically a province-wide student strike, is needed to pressure the government to reverse the changes to OSAP.
It would be a more unified and intentional direction, second-year TMU fashion student Giselle Psyarc told On The Record, helping students feel they are working together on something bigger and preventing the movement from dying out.
“I think that protests and rallies, they’re excellent for spreading awareness, but I always have to wonder what’s going to happen after the protest,” said Psyarc.
CFS is not completely opposed to a province-wide student strike, according to Ngeleka. She said she believes mobilization and outreach efforts are needed first to determine whether students can show up for greater efforts.
“We start with mobilizing our campus so that ultimately we build up the capacity to then further escalate… [until] we can confidently say that, ‘hey, we’re at a good place to call for a strike,’” she said.
TMSU initially framed the town hall on both Instagram and via email as an information session to help students understand and respond to the impacts of Bill 33, the provincial legislation passed last November, that gives the Ontario government authority to regulate student and other ancillary fees at post-secondary institutions, according to an Instagram post posted by the union on Feb. 10. After February’s announced OSAP changes, the union altered the plans for the townhall to include the new OSAP changes.
Otter AI and Grammarly were used in the production of this story.
