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Ontario Election 2025

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OCUFA is a strong advocate for accessible, high-quality postsecondary education delivered through secure academic jobs, by publicly funded, autonomous universities that are governed collegially through shared governance. This vision has been mobilized through several policies and OCUFA’s broader advocacy work and informs the organization’s political lobbying.

2025 Ontario Provincial Election:

On January 28, 2025, Premier Doug Ford announced his intentions to dissolve government and proceed with a snap election call. The election will be held February 27, 2025. OCUFA has developed an advocacy platform to guide the work ahead and mobilize our key election priorities.

Here are OCUFA’s solutions for stronger universities, and a stronger Ontario:

  • Ontario provides its universities with the lowest level of funding in Canada. This low funding has negative impacts on the quality of education, affordability, and puts at risk Ontario universities’ ability to meet the growing demand for university education in the future.
  • Inadequate public funding has caused Ontario’s postsecondary institutions to rely on the enrolment of international students. In lieu of additional funding, international tuition fees have become an incredibly important source of revenue for Ontario’s universities, owing to the higher rates that these students pay. This is coming to an end with changes coming to international student visa rules in Canada.
  • The solution to the funding crisis facing Ontario’s universities requires both improved funding and a better funding model that acknowledges how much Ontario universities already do, for the lowest amount of financial support in the country.

Election Priorities:

  • Increase total provincial university funding by 11.75 percent annually for a five-year period to bring Ontario close to the Canadian average in per-domestic student funding. This would include a $511.8 million funding commitment in year one.
  • This approach is consistent with the government’s own Blue-Ribbon panel recommendations and would cost $700 million less than the $3.2 billion required to issue cheques to all Ontarians.
  • University graduates have lower unemployment rates and enhanced resilience to recover from economic downturns, such as those experienced in 2008 and 2020.
  • The higher salaries associated with a university education are significant and transformative. On average, for Ontarians aged 35 to 44:
    • high school graduates made $46,960;
    • college graduates made $56,550;
    • university graduates with bachelor’s degrees made $80,100; and
    • university graduates with master’s degrees made $90,700.
  • Higher university wages circulate in the economy and promote economic activity, benefiting even those without a university education.
  • The Ontario government is rightly concerned about the crisis of affordability. Higher earnings will help make life more affordable, and a university education can help Ontarians realize these benefits.

Election Priorities:

  • Convert more loans into grants to ensure postsecondary education is accessible and affordable for domestic students and their families.
  • Introduce an updated funding model that doesn’t cap and/or penalize universities for the enrolment of domestic students.
  • Ontario’s universities benefit the entire province, but their impact is especially felt in Ontario’s North.
  • Northern universities are committed to serving their local communities. They deliver programming and services that directly address identified community needs.
  • In the North, universities aren’t just schools, they are economic hubs that have a transformational effect on their ability to innovate or even become a more diverse society.

Election Priorities:

  • Double and make permanent the Northern Ontario Grant for Universities over its 2024-25 total to reflect the immense contributions of Ontario’s Northern universities and their unique costs, with annual increases thereafter tied to inflation.
  • According to Statistics Canada, Ontario is experiencing a demographic swell of youth aged populations, which will only increase the need for postsecondary education options in the province. The caps on funded domestic students made sense in a time of demographic decline, however, in the context of a boom in the population of young Ontarians, this approach is no longer relevant.
  • Without greater public funding, 100,000 qualified domestic students will soon be unfunded due to domestic enrolment caps introduced through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities’ corridor funding model.
  • These prospective students are at risk of not finding a spot in any Ontario university. Because of this, Ontario is at risk of a brain drain that takes young Ontario talent – and the economic benefits they entail – elsewhere.

Election Priorities:

  • Introduce an updated funding model that doesn’t cap and penalize universities for the enrolment of domestic students.
  • Convert more loans into grants to provide incentives for prospective students from Ontario to ensure we don’t lose our best and brightest talent.
  • Low provincial funding means that Ontario’s universities are relying more than ever on contract faculty.
  • Contract faculty are hired by individual course, or on limited-term appointments. Despite many teaching the same course for many years and this being their only source of income, many must reapply for their jobs every term, earn less pay than their full-time colleagues and lack access to employer-paid benefits.
  • Hiring contract faculty into permanent positions will create more good jobs on our campuses and allow them to invest in their local economies.

Election Priorities:

  • The Ontario Government can help to end this precarious work crisis by introducing an updated funding model that allows universities to commit long-term to stable and permanent employment for a higher proportion of contract faculty members.
  • Increase total provincial university funding by 11.75 percent annually for a five-year period to bring Ontario close to the Canadian average in per-domestic student funding.
  • Reform Employment Standards Act language to include equal pay for work of equivalent value for workers in the province, including contract faculty, using a pro-rata system.

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