On February 12, 2026, the Government of Ontario announced that it would cut back on the amount of financial assistance grants for students, in addition to lifting a seven-year tuition fee freeze and providing increased funding for post-secondary institutions.
Changes to post-secondary funding
Starting this fall, amounts students are able to receive from grants through the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) will fall from a maximum of 85% to a maximum of 25%. As per a report by CBC News:
For example, if a student eligible for the maximum OSAP grant is paying $10,000 for tuition, they would previously be eligible to get $8,500 in grants that they wouldn’t have to pay back. With this new change, they would now only be eligible for $2,500.
The removal of the tuition fee freeze was seen positively by post-secondary institutions, which have been underfunded for years.
As a direct result, many universities and colleges had resorted to mass layoffs of educators and a heavy reliance on revenue from international students.
In an interview with Alex Stratas, a fourth-year political science student at the University of Ottawa, CTV News reported:
Stratas noted that the bulk of the $6.4 billion in increased provincial funding is slated to go towards research opportunities, but she argued that students have more pressing financial concerns that need to be addressed.
“If students can’t even afford to make it to class, how are they going to access these research opportunities? Fundamentally, Ontario has practically the highest GDP of all of the provinces in Canada, and has the lowest funding for post-secondary education,” she said.
See the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario’s media release here.
The uneducated Premier criticizes the art of basket-weaving
The disgraced Premier had responded to concerns through a widely criticized statement, claiming:
…a lot of the students … are picking basket-weaving courses, and there are not too many baskets being sold out there. Go into healthcare, go into trades, go into jobs of the future, focus on STEM. Those are where the jobs are.
Note that Ford himself did not finish university, having dropped out of Humber (Polytechnic) College after only two months.
Some have also perceived his criticism of “basket-weaving” as an attack on Indigenous traditions, as it is “one of the oldest known Native American crafts.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Spencer Lunham Jr. of the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, northwest of London, who has more than three decades of experience in the craft. “It’s actually disrespectful to the people that live it every day.”
Red Square Day: March 2nd, 2026
Inspired by the 2012 student protests in Québec, “Red Square Day” is set to take place on March 2nd, 2026, across institutions such as Brock University, Durham College Oshawa, King’s College at Western, Humber College, Huron College at Western, McMaster University, TMU, the University of Ottawa, the University of Waterloo, Western University, and Wilfred-Laurier University.1
Protests and walkouts
In addition, a protest at Queen’s Park in Toronto is scheduled for March 4th. Several others will occur both before and after, for instance, in London, ON, on February 28th and March 1st. Please note that this is not a complete list. Some secondary students have also begun to organize walkouts, which seem to be clustered on March 11th.
Voice of the Proletariat is not affiliated with Ontario Protest and does not take responsibility for or endorse any actions taken or comments expressed by the student organizers.