OSAP ‘fraudsters’ in private career colleges ‘going to jail,’ Doug Ford claims

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says a “couple of bad apples” in the private career college system led to “innocent people” being denied their OSAP payments from the Ontario government – a decision the province is being pressured to reverse.

In early October, the province said students at all 242 private career colleges in the province would be barred from accessing the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) as the government investigated “serious concerns” raised by the federal government, advocacy groups and internal audits and inspections.

The government alleged that some private career colleges were co-owned by immigration services and recruitment firms, could not validate students or provide verification that they were enrolled in courses and that there was a “high concentration of OSAP applications” from the same geographic locations.

Ford insisted that while the government grants come with “trust” and an expectation that “people are going to be honest,” the system was defrauded by “bad actors.”

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“There’s some good operators here, but [they] got caught with [the] bad apples, a bunch of fraudsters,” Ford said in the legislature.

Under persistent questioning from interim Liberal leader John Fraser, who said students were “approved, enrolled and abandoned” by the government, Ford insisted the criminal investigations, charges and convictions would come.

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“We’ve called in the OPP in and I hope to God these bad actors are going to jail,” Ford said.

While the province referred the findings of an interim KPMG report to the OPP, the force has yet to confirm whether a criminal investigation will be opened into the file.

Meanwhile, Opposition MPPs called on the premier to fire Minister of Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn over the file after the government revealed that it received warnings about the use of OSAP in 2025 from multiple parties, including the federal government.

Critics said the minister “failed miserably to manage this file,” took too long to intervene and over corrected by cutting off all students from provincial aid.

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Quinn insisted the government followed up on the claims of wrongdoing from the federal government, conducted “enhanced reviews” and targeted inspections of colleges, hired KPMG to conduct a system-wide audit and called in police before pausing student aid.

“It’s because of serious allegations, criminal allegations against bad actors, that’s why we paused OSAP,” Quinn said in his own defence. “We’re respecting taxpayer dollars.”

Ford rejected multiple calls from the NDP and Liberals to remove Quinn as minister over the situation.