The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Ontario's College System in Trouble?

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

The Ontario college system was created 60 years ago. How has it changed since its inception, and how will it face its current challenges? We discuss with Ann Marie Vaughan, Lyn Whitham, Maureen Adamson, and Martin Regg Cohn.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, OnPoly people, it's John Michael McGrath. Join Steve Paikin and I for a special live taping of the OnPoly podcast at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto on May 28th at 6.30 p.m. Visit onpoly-live.eventbrite.ca for tickets. Sixty years ago today, Ontario's 35-year-old Minister of Education rose in the legislature to announce he was ushering in a whole new concept in post-secondary learning. Bill Davis was that minister. He said people needed more options after high school than simply university or work.

And with that, Ontario created a new system of colleges of applied arts and technology. The college system has been a huge success. It's also facing unprecedented challenges these days. So we thought the 60th anniversary was as good a reason as any to check in and see how things are going. Let's have that discussion with Anne-Marie Vaughan, she is president of Humber Polytechnic. Maureen Adamson, president, Colleges Ontario. Lynne Whitham, professor, George Brown and Centennial Colleges and Martin Regcon, politics columnist for the Toronto Star. Happy anniversary everybody,

I guess we should start 60 years ago today. Let's do a little background, shall we Sheldon? Bring the graphic up and we'll tell everybody a bit of background about Ontario's college system. The very first one, you gotta go back to 1966, it was Centennial College in Toronto, started with 500 students, mostly secretarial journalism and nursing courses, 500 students then,

40,000 full and part-time students today. There are 24 colleges across the province, the whole system has more than half a million full and part-time students, the newest one is still 30 years old, Collège Boreal in Sudbury. There we go, that's a little background. Okay, Maureen, you speak for the whole system, so I want to start with you. We're going to start broad and then narrow down. What has the mission of the college system been for the last 60 years? Well the mission has been clear. It has been to ensure that anyone can have access to higher education. Really important that not everyone wants to go to university,

not everyone wants to be a doctor or lawyer, and that these colleges are located in communities where the local college can provide the local workforce that's needed to prosper in the communities, and that everybody gets a chance at higher education. And it's in all of those important fields. If you look at the platform of the current government, advanced manufacturing, carpentry, electrification,

that's where colleges play a role. Madam President, your specific mission at your specific institution is what? Well, of course, for Humber, we have two missions, really. We really serve the area of Toronto that we're meant to serve in the Etobicoke region. But we also play a role provincially through pathway agreements. We have 31 bachelor's degrees now at Humber. We're moving into graduate degrees. So we like to think of ourselves as being really rooted in the Rexdale, Etobicoke, Lakeshore

communities, being global in how we think, but also in providing that pathway opportunity for students within the entire Ontario College system. Lynn, what have you been teaching at George Brown and Centennial? I've taught in the business school in the marketing area at George Brown and I've taught in the School of Media Arts and Design at Centennial. And what do you see as your mission with your students? Oh, I've had a varied career. I've done lots of different things.

But I have to say that teaching has been the most rewarding of all the careers. More than working with me at CBC 40 years ago? I know, it's hard to believe. I'm really disappointed to hear that. And I love the CBC and you. Yeah, I know it's been the most rewarding work. So I have taught students in the degree program. I've taught students with degrees, given them the skills they need to be successful in life.

And it has been gratifying. I'm linked in to all my students, so I see them navigate their way through their careers. I'm very proud of all of them. And my mission is to give them the skills to be successful in their careers. And I take that very seriously. You, we wanted you here because you're not part of this system. You can give us a bit of an outsider's perspective

on how successful or not you feel the college system is 60 years to the day since it was introduced. What do you see? So amazingly successful. We're hearing lots of good things. But the question that Bill Davis raised, or his challenge, was something between high school and universities. So colleges do great things, but they can't do everything.

And that, I think, is the challenge that they face today. If you think about what a college professor told me a couple of years ago after I wrote something, he said, universities are about teaching students the why, and colleges should be about teaching students the how. Now that might seem a little severe or a little constricting, but there's been a lot of university creep by colleges over the years, and they

may have gotten a little bit ahead of their skis as a result, and there's a little bit of a constraint and a challenge that they're facing in terms of funding. Bill Davis, I can tell you, used to call Kathleen Wynn when she was premier and say, don't let any more colleges become universities. They're all trying to become a little bit more like that. And you're giving degrees out now as opposed to diplomas.

We are. I don't think that what we're offering is very different than what the university experience is. So many university students turn to our sector now because they want an applied experience that allows them to go into the labour market. So every degree that we offer is very much aligned to labour market needs. And I've worked in the university for 20 years before I moved into the college sector. There is a big difference in what

we offer and how we offer it versus what the university sector does. And it doesn't mean that it's any less value of either. It's a different experience for students. And ours is a pathway to employment. Lynn. But the universities are encroaching on what the colleges do as well. It's a two-way operation here. So you're seeing more applied certificates, degrees, at universities taking over what the colleges typically have done.

So there's encroachment on both sides. Apropos of Martin's point, though, is it best for the province of Ontario if each side, you'll forgive this expression, sticks to its knitting? I think that our economy has changed, our technology has changed so rapidly that that kind of a divide is no longer feasible or helpful to be honest. I think there's a continuum of education. You can start at a college and in a degree at a university or at another college.

And I think we have to be nimble. And colleges are very nimble in terms of being able to respond to labor market needs and our new technologies that we're facing every day. In fact, one of the things I was here, I started to hear about this 20 years ago, people going to university, getting their degree, and then going to college because now that they've learned how to think critically, they wanted to get into something more career focused. A lot more of that happening nowadays, I think. There's lots of that happening and it goes both ways to Lynn's point. Some are starting

in colleges, ending in universities and the other way around but you cannot replace the experiential learning that is provided at a college for graduates to be absolutely job ready. And that's just a quick point to what you were saying. If you think about the Quebec system of CISEP which was analogous many years ago, people go first into CISEP and then into university. And there is some convergence, I think is what we're all talking about here. I kind of threw that grenade in here about university creep by colleges. And I'll throw myself on that grenade for you

and say that sometimes it's useful to go to university and then finish off with a more specific job-sensitive finishing school, as it were, at college. But there's no question that there has been university creep by the colleges. And there's a reason for that as well, which is that universities get more money per student. So it's easier to finance the cash flow. So there's all kinds of financial and political distortions that we'll talk about today. But when colleges and universities start to be the same, Bill Davis's mission has changed. Okay. Let's... Okay, Lynn, I want to bring you in on this.

Because to the extent that I've talked to people over the years about this, and we hinted at this in the introduction, people are seeing things happening right now in the college system that is causing them a great deal of concern. Well, maybe why don't I just start with you and tell us what your first-hand sort of frontline experience is with what perhaps you might have been able to do 10 years ago, 12 years ago when you started teaching versus today. What's the difference?

The students are different. So we have the issue of the international student cap. And after the pandemic, it became even more acute, the number of international students who had come into the system. And it's safe to say, I believe, that there were abuses. There were abuses in terms of recruiters in countries getting those students to the colleges here.

Some students used the college system and education as a way to get immigration status in Canada and their commitment to education may not have been as strong as it should have been. Colleges encouraged international students because of the funding gap. They pay more. They pay much more. And there is a significant funding gap. Anywhere from when the colleges started, and Bill Davis' brilliant vision for colleges, which I think is brilliant, colleges were being funded

around 80% of their budget dollars. Today it's in the 20% range. So think about that 80% gap that exists. And so the international students were fueling that financial gap. The problem was that they weren't that interested. And so some of them weren't that interested. Some of them were terrific. Some of them, many of them are extraordinary students

and want to do well and want to stay in Canada and contribute. But others just saw it as a pass to the immigration system. Do you think it has been, and look at, I appreciate that three of you here today make your living in this system, you love this system, you are champions of this system, but I wonder whether or not the reliance on foreign students and the triple or quadruple tuitions that they have paid in order to be in this system have allowed certain distortions and either distortions to happen or problems unmet to take place. Maureen, what do you think?

Well, I have to say I think it's a pretty broad sweeping statement to say that students came here to abuse the system for strictly certain reasons. I'm sure there are always those exceptions. But colleges have a very robust quality framework around the kinds of education, the kinds of standards that students have to comply with to be approved to come to a college in Ontario and in Canada for that matter. I think that was very robust.

Have colleges had to rely on international revenue? Absolutely. Because? In the absence of other funding through the province, there are only several revenue streams that we can rely on, and international is definitely one. Well let me pick up with that. So the spigot of international students has been turned off by the federal government so you don't have that revenue. The province has frozen tuition for seven years, the

progressive conservative government, so you don't have that revenue. How strapped are you right now? Well Humber may be a bit of an anomaly here. We didn't have a drop in international students from last year to this year. We do expect we'll see a drop this year simply because of the approval rates for visas coming from the government. But we were not one of the institutions that had over 50% international enrollment.

They had a few some. 38%, correct? What I would say to you is that international students had a higher retention rate. They had a higher graduation rate. So these students were actually performing quite well. They came here with a mission in mind, the vast majority, and they excelled in our system and filling much needed jobs in the labor force. When you look at our graduation, our employment rates, they're well over 80 percent six months

out of graduation, and our employer satisfaction rates are well over 90 percent. But if there's one thing I hear, it's that the tuition freeze, plus the reduction in foreign students paying those much higher than domestic student tuitions, has resulted in a system that is no longer able to fulfill the mission that it had set out to do 60 years ago. True or false? I don't think it's as simple as that. I don't think we're not fulfilling our mission. I think we really are continuing to fulfill our mission. It doesn't mean that we're not going through significant financial challenges.

And this didn't happen overnight. The decline in federal funding for higher education in Canada started in the late 90s. I actually did my master's thesis on this topic in the late 90s. So what we're seeing now is an erosion that's taken place over a long period of time over multiple political parties that have been involved in the financing of higher education in Canada and in Ontario. And you're right that we're dependent on either tuition or government grants for our funding. But we do have a public policy objective in Canada that students pay towards their educational experience and government pay.

And so I think that this is a wider public policy discussion that we need to have in Ontario. And it's not just the college sector, it also impacts the university sector. And it's a wider conversation we need to have. So without pointing the finger of blame at anyone here or at international students who are just seizing the opportunity that was made open to them, at the outset of this show, everyone said that at Humber, at other universities, serving the local community is the most satisfying objective.

And when you have, as you pointed out, more than 50% of the student body coming from overseas or not from the local community, you get a distortion. Look. That's not the case in Humber. Humber being an exception. Emory hastened to add. But you said that other, you're at 35%.

Humber is an exception. It's more resilient. Yeah, Humber is at 35%, bless you. But you said other universities are typically over 50%. Seneca, you pick any college at Conestoga, et cetera, But you said other universities are typically over colleges are typically over 50 percent. You pick any college at Conestoga, etc. A lot of them are at 50 to 70 to 80 percent foreign students. It's remarkable.

If you think of what Bill Davis's vision was all those years ago, serving the local community, meeting the needs of our provincial economy. And so you're right that there has of course been a steady erosion of funding models over the decades, whether it's in Medicare or health education. But the crisis, which I think we'll talk about, arose when there was a tuition freeze seven or so years ago. And so that opened the spigot to bringing in all those foreign students far more than before and many distortions. Look, when I was at university, the international students were the highlight of my career but you can have too much of a good thing. So when it's my day I hung out with them but

they were 10% of the student body at most. So there is a distortion at the local level in terms of serving the community which I think is a problem and then there are all kinds of other funding issues when universities see foreign students as, forgive me, cash cows. Lynn, let me get some, again, on the ground experience from you. Are you seeing, in your world, at George Brown and Centennial, courses cut, staff cut? You are seeing both of those things.

The program I teach in at Centennial has been cut. The school I teach in has been closed. At George Brown, I haven't worked there since December because there aren't classes available. I'm what you call partial load, which is an instructor who has between 6 and 12 hours teaching hours a week. There are full-time faculty members.

So what I'm seeing from my perspective is that the partial load and the part-time instructors are invisible. Basically, they're on contract, so you can just cancel the contract and the problem's solved. The focus has been on protecting full-time, and there are fewer full-time instructors or professors than partial load. The partial load and the part-time people are the ones who are doing a lot of heavy lifting in the system. So in one of the programs I teach in, there are six instructors. Two are full-time, four are part-time or partial load. So that's, you can see what the ratio, I'm sure that ratio is consistent for many programs.

So the question becomes, and Maureen will put that... Lots of people are gone from the system. Well, this is the question. Is the system not as excellent because it has fewer staff? Is there less choice for students because a lot of these courses are being cut? I want to come back to the mission of the Bill Davis original intent for colleges. We can talk about the revenue streams and, you know, the dilution of student bodies in rural communities and other

places, you know, the dirty word of private career colleges was a way to equalize some of the private, some of the rural colleges that couldn't attract international students. But that revenue has been clearly invested to maintain the mandate of colleges in Ontario to deliver on those important domestic programs whether it's advanced manufacturing, carpentry, health sciences, resource mining, everything in the current government's platform has been delivered through this subsidization. So I say the

mandate has been well intact although we've had to use international revenue to do so. I've got to understand the math here better, so maybe you can help me with this. If all of your students have had a tuition freeze for the last seven years, meaning you're basically – the money you're taking in today is the same as the money you took in seven years ago, and the spigot on foreign students has been turned off so you don't have that cash cow forgive me to rely on and the province of Ontario is not increasing its allocations to post-secondary institutions how are you keeping the lights on well I mean for Humber it's been 50 years of very good

fiscal management of of the institution. Come on, Anne Marie. No, I mean, I'm just saying that we had to find funding this year. We were able to do it. Next year it's going to become more challenging. And for Humber, I've also been president of Loyalist College in Belleville. It's far more challenging for more rural campuses. But what I will tell you, in the Audra General's report and to Martin's point, that there was not one example that

was found that a domestic student was displaced by an international student. Well, I don't think anybody's alleging that. Nobody's alleging that. So in terms of, but I do think there's an assumption here by the public that by bringing international students in, they've despised domestic. What they actually did was keep programs stable

at many of the rural campuses, because they might only have 10 domestic students, and they can offset that with 10 others. But with respect, there's not a displacement, but there's a distortion of the orientation. I think we heard that earlier from Lynn, I believe, that when 60% of the students aren't from Ontario, as much as I love foreign students, as a stimulating way to broaden the mind, then there may be language challenges.

There may be other career challenges that are just different. You can't pretend that a class or a campus that is 75%, let's say, international students, is as focused on local needs. But I'm not blaming the universities or the colleges for that. Sorry. I'm not blaming the universities or the colleges for that.

Sorry. I'm blaming the government that created a distorted funding model. As Steve was arguing, I think we would all agree here, you can't freeze cash flow for seven years after first cutting it. If the government wanted to be populist, and if the opposition politicians also

want to be populist because they're also singing the same tune as Doug Ford on this, all of them want the tuition freeze, then of course colleges had to make up the difference elsewhere. And it wasn't optimal. And what's interesting is that Bob Ray was chosen by the Liberal government about two decades ago to do a report, the Ray Report on tuition, which

recommended a former socialist premier recommending higher tuition levels, along with Richard Johnson and Bill Davis was on that committee as well, and Don Drummond. So the blue ribbon panel that was brought in two years ago recommended a tuition increase of 5% followed by 2% increments. And the government keeps rejecting its own blue ribbon panel.

I would say, though, that tuition is worth more to the universities than it does to the colleges. Because of our access mandate, our tuition is lower anyway. So if there was a tuition increase, yes, it would help us out as a college sector. No one would deny that. But it's more valuable to the university sector because the percentage increase actually

equates into higher revenue to the university sector because the percentage increase actually equates into higher revenue for the university sector. What's really important for us to have this conversation about in Ontario is the alignment of colleges to the economic mandate of the government. And you cannot grow an energy sector, you cannot build houses, you cannot have a infrastructure plan either nationally or provincially without our graduates. And so there I think there needs to be a policy alignment of the role that we play which is a far more direct economic role of health care, of infrastructure, of

housing, of energy. If you think about the mining sector the vast majority of those graduates are going to be our graduates. There needs to be a real deeper policy look at the work that we do and the alignment of that policy with the economic agendas that we're going to see both federally and provincially and an understanding that it's our sector that's going to fill those jobs. But is that happening? Is that actually happening? No, it's not happening. The alignment is that happening? Is that actually happening? I was just going to say because... No, it's not happening. So you've got...

The alignment is not happening, you're saying. The alignment is not happening. Construction management, project management, for example, eliminated it to colleges. Those are the people you need for this housing issue that we're facing to build new homes. And I think we're... Humber really is in a different situation than most colleges. What we're talking about, and I don't know where the aggregation of the numbers of people laid off, programs cancelled,

it's not anywhere, I don't know where it is, but 400 at Fanshawe, 450 at Mohawk, and it all comes out in dribs and drabs. And some colleges aren't even saying how many people are being laid off, how many programs are being cut. So we don't have a clear picture of what the college sector looks like right now. And I would suggest it's in a bit of a crisis. No, it is in a crisis. Things are having to happen very quickly to address the budget issues. Colleges are making alignment errors in terms of the programs that are being cancelled.

They're trying to align them to what the federal government will allow international students into, rather than perhaps what the economy requires. So there is a crisis happening. And when you think back to Bill Davis's vision, which I think was brilliant, when I first came into the college system to teach, I had no idea the work that was being done by the colleges and how extraordinary that was. And I just see it being squandered right now. I see it devolving. Just a quick follow-up to Anne-Marie's point. I think there's a

misapprehension, not at this table, but in this province and by this government, that just throwing money, funneling money to the skilled trades will answer the economic challenges of Ontario. That if you create apprenticeship programs for carpenters or other building trades, as valuable as that is, that that somehow will give, allow the province to meet the needs on autopilot. You still need the construction managers. You still need the people, the aeronautical engineers or the people with aeronautical training, which

is much more expensive at Seneca or other colleges. And you can't just create carpenter halls. Again, this is not to diminish that role. It is not, however, displaced. That does not replace what colleges do. You have to have both. If I may, you know, colleges still provide 80% of all the in-class training for trades and technologies in Ontario.

Colleges produce 31,000 trades technology. Graduates in a year, those particular TDAs produce about 7,000. So to your very point, I think there's room for colleges and trade unions, but let's not forget, colleges are still 80% of that marketplace. But if you think of the campaign trail in the last election in February, Doug Ford and his ministers were always going to align with the building craze, and I didn't see them

very often stopping at college campuses to say, here, we're making up what we took away. Well, let me, okay, let me do a follow-up with you on that, Maureen. I'll pluck an example out of thin air here. Ontario Tech, which I think is traditionally We're making up what we took away. Well, let me do a follow-up with you on that, Maureen. I'll pluck an example out of thin air here. Ontario Tech, which I think is traditionally, anyway, very aligned with the autoworkers

because they're making cars not too far away from where Ontario Tech is in Durham Region. Does the private sector, does General Motors, does Unifor, does the autoworkers, do those unions have to play a bigger role in whatever it is that colleges do there in order to make this work going forward? You know, when I look at our economy, we've got, you know, definitely a structural deficit in all the important programs that you talk about, Lyn, those are the ones being cut because

we can't afford to deliver on those ones. And I think about that, I think about 500,000 jobs that we're trying to fill, I think about fighting tariffs. I think you know colleges are completely aligned with those kinds of graduates and the workforce that's needed and still play the predominant role. Private unions have a role to play but colleges have been at this for a long time. We have state-of-the-art facilities. I would invite anyone to come to a college and look at Fleming College, for example, and our trade center. You know, we're important players in this and we are aligned with the government and want to be part of the solution. Who's a former president of Fleming College?

I don't know who she is. Who might be sitting at this table right now, a former president of Fleming? You mentioned Ontario Tech. So Humber has developed a partnership with Ontario Tech in the nuclear sector. So between what we offer and what Ontario Tech offers, that's the full spectrum of skills that's needed to grow this energy sector for Ontario. And what Humber is doing is we're bringing more colleges with us because there's 100,000 jobs to fill. In order to be able to think about getting all those skills. It's much more than just Humber's work. There's a lot of work to happen as well as Ontario Tech leading on their side of the nuclear industry. There's really opportunities for more collaboration between our sector and

the university sector in the province and what we're doing with Ontario Tech I think is a great example of how we fulfill the needs, again, of the economic priorities of Ontario, which is energy, housing, infrastructure, healthcare. We're all, we all represent together the full spectrum of skills that are needed for those industries. I totally take your point, which is why, when Martin and I were locked up in the budget last week, reading the budget of the province of Ontario, to my surprise, knowing the significance of all of the things that you just said,

I note a decline in government funding to the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities by 1.4 billion over the next four three years over the next three years I mean I'm not great at math but I don't know that you can cut a billion four out of a system and still have the impact that you want to have who's gonna jump in and tell me that this is all gonna work out despite this cut I'll take the opposite position and just say that that is the challenge. And it bears repeating that when you take that much money out of the system, when you also take out tuition and freeze it. The current minister, Nolan Quinn, used to run a Dairy Queen franchise in Cornwall and

was, in fact, the representative of the franchise operators with DQ. That's a very political job. So he has some political agility. But I asked him, how would you run your business if head office told you that you had to cut the price of blizzards or chocolate dip cones by 10% and freeze that for seven years? I mean, it's not sustainable. While wages, as everyone...

What did he say? He didn't have... Well, it was a private conversation. But he did not have a defensible answer. What did he say? Everyone. He didn't have, well, it was a private conversation. He did not have a defensible answer. Well, this is, I mean, you've referenced chocolate dip cones here, which are terrific, incidentally. However, on a grander scale, this

is exactly what the future looks like, Lin, for the post-secondary system. And colleges will have to play their part in that funding drop, I don't know how you continue to offer the same or better service when you got that much less money going into the system. I don't know. What this is, deep, deprioritizing education.

And is this the time to be deprioritizing education in this province? Isn't it Bill Davis's vision that education was the key to economic success for this province and now we're pulling that away? It can't work. It won't work. And I know universities are dealing with this issue as well. How could we logically take away the opportunities for education for our young people and training for jobs and have a thriving economy. How's that possible?

Maureen, when you got your budget briefing last week and you saw that the post-secondary allocation was going to be a billion four less three years from now, how did you react? Well, certainly there's some funding that was, the sustainability funding was time limited so I think that's a big piece of the decline so I don't think it should be misread but I will say that it doesn't negate the fact that we've got a problem on our hands and we need to work very closely with the province to make sure that we solve these these funding issues and particularly in the areas of where the workforce is so important in all the areas we talked about, trades technology building, all of it. I think we need to focus on those and we are aligned with with the platform

in that regard but we need to work together. I think what Maureen's referring to was that there was a one-time billion plus ad hoc supplement which is what the government is doing rather than listening to its own blue ribbon panel, which said bring in a couple of billion dollars and race tuition and so on, they brought in less than half of that. And they do this in a piecemeal way that doesn't apply to base funding, and it's not going to get the job done.

But at the end of the day, it's about politics. And colleges are a political football. And part of the challenge, I I think for everyone at this table is that voters do not seem to be seized of this issue the way they are about kindergarten to grade 12 when there's a walkout or a challenge in K to 12 parents are clamoring for action from school trustees but when it comes to colleges and universities a young people don't vote in the same numbers. They just don't.

And parents don't seem to be as motivated on this issue. And so politicians from all parties can get away with it. I absolutely agree with you on that point. I do believe that it's interest group dynamics that will impact public policy. And we really need the public to be conscious of the role that we play in society. And you can't say that we don't have access to health care

without funding the system that provides nurses and PSWs and technicians in the health care sector. So there has to be, that's going back to my point of the alignment of our policy objectives with other policies, whether it's health care or economic policy of the province, we need the public to really understand the direct relationship between those two.

You can't grow a life science sector without the people to be able to do it. You can't have energy, autonomy, without the people to be able to do it. And I think from a public perspective and a public policy perspective, we have to do a better job of making sure that the public understands where we are

and the support that we need from the public, because governments respond to public policy. And that's where I think we could do better alignment as a system to be able to advocate more for what we need to be able to be that partner with industry, with employers, and for the public itself to have the services that they would like to see. Lynn, I want to ask you whether you feel that the students that you encounter will be as ready to face the future in light of everything we've talked about now going forward?

I think that's a really good question. So one of the things that I noticed about colleges, and I spent a lot of time at university, but colleges, innovation is faster, it's more responsive. Right now the programs I teach in are trying to integrate AI into the teaching, looking at the impacts of AI, etc. And so I think, you know, when you talk about what's the future going to look like, what do we teach young people now to be equipped for the future? I would argue that some of the colleges are in the best place

to innovate around that issue quickly and implement quickly. So losing that capacity in the educational system, if it's not funded and prioritized, is going to be damaging to the economy, to young people as they try to navigate in this world that's so uncertain at the moment, because they won't have the skills to understand that world and where the opportunities lie. Maureen, I'll give you the last word here. It has often been said that the college system

is the envy of the world. Bill Davis sent his colleges and universities minister to Iran 45 years ago because they were interested in building the same system we have now. Do we still have a system that's the envy of the world? I think we do have a system that's the envy of the world. Do we have some challenges and some financial challenges? Absolutely.

But we have the kinds of faculty, we have the equipment, we have the curriculum, we have industry partnership. We can still be the envy of the world. You know Bill Davis once said, you get education right, everything else falls into place. On this 60th anniversary, are we getting education right? Yes, we are. We could keep the debate going and I think there's a lot more we can do but I have a different perspective. I've worked in another province. I've studied in two other provinces and let me just say that the student experience in the Ontario College system is exceptional and that's where I keep my eye and focus is making

sure that our students have the best experience so our employers get the best value of the students that we produce and I would say continue to say that the Ontario college system is a jewel in the Canadian higher education landscape. Can we do more? Absolutely. Could we have more funding? Absolutely. Are we at risk? Absolutely. But Bill Davis's vision was profound 60 years ago and what we provide to students in our communities today is of the highest value of quality, of exceptionality, and our faculty are exceptional. The staff that work at these institutions are exceptional and I can't think of a better place to be.

Last word goes to the president of Humber Polytechnic, that's Anne-Marie Vaughan, along with Lynn Whitham, who's been teaching at George Brown and Centennial Colleges for the past decade and more. And on the other side of the table, Maureen Adamson, president, Colleges Ontario, and Martin Regcon, whose stuff you read in the Toronto Star. Thanks so much everybody, and happy 60th anniversary. Thank you. Thank you.