Funding pause reaches health-care trainees
A provincial freeze on student assistance has reached northern Ontario paramedic students who had been approved for support under a program designed to strengthen health-care staffing in underserved communities. At least more than 40 affected students have already left their studies, according to their college.
The students attend CTS Canadian Career College, the only career college eligible for Ontario’s Learn and Stay Grant. The school delivers its paramedic diploma program in North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury. The grant is intended to cover tuition for nursing, paramedic and medical laboratory technology students who commit to working in communities identified as underserved.
Although the program is promoted as a way to build the province’s health-care workforce, its financing runs through the Ontario Student Assistance Program. That connection has left the paramedic students caught in a wider government decision affecting career colleges and other private post-secondary institutions.
Audit prompted provincewide action
Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn has paused OSAP funding for the affected sector while accounting firm KPMG conducts an audit of OSAP use in career colleges. Quinn has said preliminary results raised concerns serious enough to justify suspending the program across the sector while the review proceeds.
The minister’s stated focus is the integrity of the student-aid system. The pause follows a sharp rise in provincial grants distributed to career colleges. Information obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request showed that OSAP grants to those institutions nearly doubled between 2023-24 and 2024-25, reaching about $1 billion in the latter year.
A separate freedom-of-information request pointed to rapidly increasing use of OSAP at a relatively small number of schools. The data showed that some career colleges recorded increases of more than 1,000 per cent over three years. The ministry has said those figures contributed to broader concerns about the system.
| Measure | Information reported |
|---|---|
| College eligible for Learn and Stay | CTS Canadian Career College |
| CTS campuses offering paramedic training | North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury |
| OSAP grants to career colleges in 2024-25 | About $1 billion |
| Reported increase at CTS over three years | 14 per cent |
Different pattern at CTS
The information obtained by The Canadian Press does not place CTS among the schools that recorded the largest increases. Its OSAP use rose by 14 per cent over the three-year period examined, according to the data. That figure is considerably lower than the increases of more than 1,000 per cent reported at some other career colleges.
Nevertheless, the broader suspension has applied to CTS students whose education was connected to a provincial recruitment initiative. The result is that students in the same program can face uncertainty even though the government’s audit concerns the wider operation of OSAP in the career-college sector.
Student describes sudden uncertainty
Aaron Madgett is studying at the CTS campus in Sault Ste. Marie. He entered the paramedic program after losing his job at Algoma Steel and said the funding announcement immediately raised questions about whether he could continue his training.
“It kind of ripped away all the goals and aspirations that I had for me and my family, and I was gutted at the time,” Madgett said.
Madgett said the school has been helping students after the pause. The source material does not specify the form or extent of that assistance, but his account illustrates how a decision made as part of a provincewide review can affect people who had already committed to a new career and to training for paramedic work in northern communities.
Students and colleges await the review
The government has described the pause as a temporary measure intended to protect the student-aid system until KPMG completes its audit. For students, however, the immediate consequences include interrupted plans and, in more than 40 cases reported by the school, withdrawal from the program.
The dispute therefore has two linked dimensions. Ontario is examining whether public student-aid funding was properly used by career colleges, while students in a program selected by the province for special support are dealing with the practical consequences of that examination. The available information does not indicate when the audit will be completed or when the OSAP pause will be lifted.
For the three northern Ontario communities where CTS offers paramedic training, the issue is also tied to the province’s stated effort to recruit health-care workers outside the largest urban centres. Until the funding review is resolved, students, the college and the government remain responsible for navigating a gap between that workforce objective and the halted aid system supporting it.
