Liberals push Ford government to lift OSAP pause for non-offending colleges

It's been just over a week since the province paused OSAP funding for students at all private career colleges. Ontario Liberals say thousands of students shouldn't be kept in limbo. Where is Premier Doug Ford? Where is Minister Nolan Quinn? And where is the accountability? The Ford government said they sent the case to the OPP almost two weeks ago. Police confirm they've received the referral and are doing a review of it. Investigate the potential fraud. Cut off the bad actors. But we have to restore OSAP for students who did nothing wrong. Students deserve answers. Taxpayers deserve answers. And Doug Ford needs to answer for what happened under his watch. A few career colleges are in a legal battle with the province. Provincial inspections indicated irregularities. An unusually rapid completion pattern. Online exams and quizzes for some students finished in just minutes. Entire courses completed in one day. This month, the court filing was updated to show the three Academy of Learning locations have been denied OSAP approval for three more years until 2030. The schools asking for a judicial review, saying they'd submitted a corrective action plan. At this point, students from all career colleges cannot access OSAP this year. The government has had no update since it mentioned potential third-party low-interest loans. The Liberals say some plan is urgent. At the bottom line of this whole thing is, what is happening to people? To people who've taken risks, who have families, who have mortgages, who have to pay rent. They are getting cut off at the knees. And it's not their fault. A statement from the Minister of Colleges and Universities office says the government suspended six different colleges due to non-compliance. It says it then implemented that larger sector-wide pause for OSAP to protect the integrity of the entire sector. Lorinda Reddick, CBC News, Toronto.