Bill 33 is an over-reaching piece of legislation that will have severe ramifications on all levels of education - from primary and secondary, to post-secondary education in Ontario. Submitted by MPP Paul Calandra, and co-sponsored by MPP Nolan Quinn and MPP Michael Parsa, this Bill is part of an ongoing pattern by Doug Ford’s provincial government to deliberately destabilize and defund education in Ontario.

Amidst all of this, students in Ontario continue to pay some of the highest tuition fees in the country, all because of a provincial government that refuses to fund the post-secondary education sector. The deliberate slashing of provincial funding has steadily increased since the conservative government took over, and repeatedly ignores the budget recommendations put forward by the Federation. As the provincial government cuts funding from post-secondary institutions, students are leveraged to extract more and more money, creating an unrelenting cycle. 

Doug Ford claims that he’s good in a crisis and he’s proposing Bill 33 as a solution to the education crisis in the province – a crisis that his government has manufactured and furthered. Bill 33 won’t help students save money but rather, pins the high tuition costs on ancillary and levy fees, and aims to severely restrict admissions under the guise of “merit-based admissions”.