Ontario Won't Release Career College OSAP Audit as Opposition Pushes for Auditor General

Ontario's colleges and universities minister says the public won't see the findings of a government-commissioned audit into student aid at private career colleges. That decision has given opposition parties at Queen's Park a new line of attack in a fight over student aid that has run through both weeks of the fall sitting so far.

Minister Nolan Quinn told reporters on Tuesday that he will not be releasing the audit, which he commissioned from KPMG last month after concerns about rising use of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). "Ultimately, we want to keep ensuring that the confidentiality of that audit is taking place, but we will act accordingly with the results of that audit," Quinn said after question period.

Later that day, a spokesperson for the minister said the ministry would "consider" releasing information from the audit, as long as doing so would not compromise a possible police investigation, a possible future auditor general investigation, or the ministry's efforts to recover funds and hold bad actors accountable.

What the audit has found so far

Preliminary findings alarmed the government enough to refer the matter to the Ontario Provincial Police. The ministry formally contacted police on Oct. 2, and in early October the province paused all loans for students attending private colleges.

Quinn has said the early findings raise concerns about "common ownership, the involvement of immigration services firms", weak checks on students and course enrolment, and "unusually high concentrations of OSAP applications submitted from the same geographic locations."

Court filings in a separate case offer a closer look. The ministry alleges that at an Academy of Learning campus in Brampton East, 3,136 of 6,001 OSAP applications for 2025-26 came from a single IP address. At the North York campus, it was 3,460 of 6,070. The ministry also says it has received more than 220 tips, complaints, referrals and investigations about three of the chain's campuses since January 2024. The Academy of Learning has denied wrongdoing and says it has taken corrective action, and the allegations have not been proven in court. The Globe and Mail reports that some of the complaints alleged recruiters were filling out aid applications and doing online coursework for students.

Spending was concentrated in a small part of the sector. Data from a freedom-of-information request shows that about half of all OSAP funding for private college students went to just 10 of the province's 177 listed institutions. The share of grants going to private career college students rose from eight per cent in 2017-18 to about 40 per cent in 2024-25.

Opposition wants the auditor general

On Monday, Liberal MPP Lee Fairclough asked the legislature's public accounts committee to have the auditor general do a special value-for-money audit of OSAP spending at private career colleges from 2020-21 to 2025-26. The Progressive Conservative majority voted the motion down. PC MPP Jess Dixon said a special audit now "risks duplicating work and complicating those processes", and said the auditor general has indicated she will consider the file in future audit planning.

Quinn made the same argument on Tuesday: "We want to ensure that audit that's taking place is done thoroughly and without distractions from another audit." Fairclough said she had no idea why that would be a distraction. NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the public is paying for the KPMG audit, so the public should get to see its findings.

The NDP also put forward a motion asking the government to produce, within 14 days, a plan for immediate relief for affected students. It was defeated 68 to 38.

What's next for students

Quinn has promised legislation this fall to tighten oversight of OSAP, which would also make students in online-only courses ineligible for the program. He has not said when loans for career college students will resume. Until then, "I will not flow another taxpayer dollar until I have the confidence in the (OSAP) system," Quinn told the legislature.