“I wish them all the best, run it like a business.”
– Premier Doug Ford in response to job cuts at Humber Polytechnic.
The Young Communist League of Canada – Ligue de la jeunesse communiste condemns the most recent attacks against students and workers by the Doug Ford government. This is part of a wider series of austerity measures meant to sell off public post-secondary education to the highest bidder.
On February 12th, 2026 the Ford government announced an end to the multi-years long tuition-freeze by hiking tuition fees by 2% each year, and a drastic change in OSAP that reduces grants to a maximum of 25% and loans to a minimum of 75%. This saddles students with more student debt.
The Ford government’s injection of $6.4 billion dollars into post-secondary education has done little to stave off the years of chronic underfunding. Even after the announcement, colleges like Fanshawe, Algonquin, and Humber announced more job and program cuts, adding to the 10,000 academic and non-academic staff already laid off.
These cuts are not new strategies being implemented by Ford’s government but rather in line with the ongoing attacks subsequent governments have taken against the institution of public education across the country. The difference with these cuts is that these OSAP changes aim to reduce the working class’ ability to access post-secondary education and to appeal to the corporations that benefit from alternate job training, such as the corporations who have been awarded job-training funds via the Skills Development Fund, including many of Doug Ford’s election campaign supporters.
These cuts and tuition hikes come right after the Ford government rammed through Bill 33, which attempts to stifle student organizing and the existence of democratic student unions on campus through “right-to-work” style policies. This is the playbook of the Ford government – try to crush opposition and then push through austerity measures. It also comes after a series of heavy cuts from the federal government, with Carney seeking to undermine public services and public education to the tune of rapidly expanding and investing 5% of Canada’s GDP into the NATO military budget.
The ruling class in Canada, represented by the various monopoly interests who sit on boards of governors across the country will benefit from the privatization of education as well as the increase of student debt. Representatives from Canada’s big five banks have representatives on several boards of governors at colleges and universities across the country, the same banks that make a profit off of private student bank loans. We have seen the Liberal government blame migrants and international students for the housing and cost-of-living crisis that Liberal policies and corporations have exacerbated. This scapegoating has resulted in the caps on international students, leading to the funding crisis in post-secondary education, which has been exploiting international students for their tuition fees to fund colleges and universities in the absence of public funding for education. The root cause of this crisis is capitalism in decline.
The YCL-LJC supports the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario in their recent mobilization against the tuition fee increase and changes to OSAP. We call on students and student organizations to mobilize in every faculty, department, and with campus workers.
The YCL-LJC demands:
- Public post secondary education must be fully funded. Stop Privatizing our Universities!
- More grants not loans!
- Free, democratic, accessible quality education for all!
- Reverse the OSAP cuts, cancel student debt!
- Stop the attacks on student unions and organizing on campuses!
