Bill 166 amends the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act to require every publicly‑assisted college and university in Ontario to: adopt and implement a student mental health policy; adopt and implement policies and rules to address and combat racism and hate (explicitly including anti‑Indigenous and anti‑Black racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia); and comply with Ministerial directives about disclosure of the costs of attendance. Institutions must publish these policies online, review them at least every five years, and provide annual reports to their boards on implementation and effectiveness.
The bill concentrates oversight power in the Minister: the Minister may issue directives specifying required policy topics or elements, set compliance dates and state the steps the Minister intends to take for non‑compliance. Directives under these sections are explicitly excluded from Part III of the Legislation Act, 2006.
The bill also lets the Minister require written reports from institutions and clarifies that ‘costs’ may include ancillary fees, textbooks and other learning materials. Section 2 (the policy sections) comes into force by proclamation; other parts come into force on Royal Assent.
At a Glance
What It Does
Requires every publicly‑assisted college and university to have and implement (and publicly post) a student mental health policy and policies/rules to address racism and hate, and to report annually to their boards on implementation and effectiveness. Authorizes the Minister to issue directives on policy content, timelines and compliance steps, and to require written reports from institutions. Directives are exempt from the Legislation Act’s regulatory process.
Who It Affects
Every publicly‑assisted college of applied arts and technology and publicly‑assisted university in Ontario, their boards of governors, student services and compliance staff, and prospective students and families seeking cost information. The Ministry will also inherit monitoring and reporting responsibilities.
Why It Matters
The law replaces voluntary or institution‑specific approaches with statutory duties plus Ministerial directives, increasing central control over what institutions must include in mental health and anti‑racism policies and how cost information is disclosed. That shift raises operational, transparency and accountability issues for institutions and the Ministry.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act imposes three parallel obligations on every publicly‑assisted college and university in Ontario. First, each institution must have a student mental health policy that describes the programs, policies, services and supports available to students.
That policy must be implemented, posted on the institution’s website, made available on request, reviewed at least every five years, and the institution must give its board an annual report on implementation and effectiveness.
Second, every institution must have policies and rules that set out how it will address and combat racism and hate — explicitly naming anti‑Indigenous racism, anti‑Black racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia. Those policies require the same implementation, publication, review and annual board reporting as the mental health policy, and the Minister may shorten the review timeline via directive.Third, the Minister may issue directives about the information institutions must provide to the public about the costs of attendance.
The Act defines costs to include ancillary fees and the costs of textbooks and other learning materials. Institutions named in a directive must comply by the date the Minister specifies and must report to their boards annually on implementation of any such directives.Across all three subject areas the Minister’s powers are broad: the Minister can specify required topics or elements, set deadlines, and identify the steps the Minister intends to take if the institution, in the Minister’s opinion, fails to comply.
Directives issued under these new sections do not fall under Part III of the Legislation Act, 2006, meaning the Minister can impose content and timing requirements without the formal regulatory procedures of that Act. Separately, the Minister may also require institutions to submit written reports by a date and in a form the Minister specifies; institutions must comply with those reporting demands.
The Act preserves other Ministerial powers under the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002, and brings Section 2 into force by proclamation while the rest of the Act takes effect on Royal Assent.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Minister may issue directives that require specific topics or elements in mental health or anti‑racism policies and set the date by which institutions must comply.
Directives under the new sections are exempted from Part III of the Legislation Act, 2006, so they bypass that Act’s regulation‑making procedures.
Every institution must publish its student mental health policy and its policies and rules on racism and hate on its website, make copies available on request, and review them at least once every five years (earlier if a directive requires).
Institutions must provide their boards of governors with annual reports on the implementation and effectiveness of their mental health and anti‑racism policies and on any applicable cost‑disclosure directives; the Minister can separately require reports to be sent to the Ministry.
The Act expressly treats ‘costs associated with attendance’ as including ancillary fees and the costs of textbooks and other learning materials for the purposes of Ministerial cost‑disclosure directives.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Repeal of subsection 4.1(4)
The bill repeals subsection 4.1(4) of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act. The text of the repealed provision is not reproduced in the Act; practitioners should check the current consolidated version of the parent Act to see what operational change follows from that repeal and whether transitional provisions in institution practice apply.
Student mental health policy: creation, implementation and oversight
This section mandates that every publicly‑assisted college and university have a student mental health policy describing available programs, policies, services and supports, and that the institution implement that policy. The institution must publish the policy online, make copies available on request, review it at minimum every five years, and provide the board of governors with an annual report on implementation and effectiveness. Importantly, subsection (3) allows the Minister, by directive, to require additional topics or elements and to set compliance dates.
Policies and rules to address and combat racism and hate
Section 20 requires institutions to adopt policies and rules describing how they will address and combat racism and hate, explicitly naming anti‑Indigenous racism, anti‑Black racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia. Like the mental health provision, institutions must implement, publish and periodically review these policies and provide annual board reports. The Minister can issue directives that specify required content, timelines and the steps the Minister intends to take for non‑compliance; those directives may accelerate review schedules.
Ministerial directives on cost disclosure
This section gives the Minister authority to issue directives about the information institutions must provide to the public about the costs of attendance and how it must be provided. The Act clarifies that ‘costs’ may include ancillary fees and costs of textbooks and learning materials. Institutions receiving a directive must comply by the Minister’s specified date and report to their boards annually on implementation of applicable directives.
Minister may require reports from institutions
Section 22 lets the Minister require one or more institutions to submit written reports by specified dates and in a specified form about their student mental health policy, policies on racism and hate, and any matter where the Minister exercised powers under the new sections. The reports must contain the information the Minister specifies, and institutions are obliged to comply, creating a statutory reporting channel from institutions to the Ministry.
Existing Ministerial powers preserved
This brief clause clarifies that the new powers do not limit the Minister’s ability to issue policy directives under subsection 4(1) of the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002. In practice that means the Ministry retains any existing, separate directive powers and the new sections sit alongside those authorities.
Commencement and short title
Most of the Act comes into force on Royal Assent, but Section 2 — which contains the substantive policy duties for institutions — comes into force on a day to be named by proclamation of the Lieutenant Governor. The short title is Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act, 2024. Institutions and counsel should track proclamation timing because it governs when schools must start complying with the substantive obligations.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Students generally — They gain statutory guarantees that institutions must maintain and publish student mental health supports and anti‑racism policies, improving visibility of supports and institutional accountability.
- Racialized and Indigenous students and other groups targeted by hate — The law requires institutions to adopt targeted policies addressing anti‑Indigenous racism and anti‑Black racism (and other named forms of hate), potentially strengthening institutional responses to harms and discrimination.
- Prospective students and families — Ministerial directives on cost disclosure and the statutory inclusion of ancillary fees and learning materials should increase transparency around the true cost of attendance when the Ministry issues disclosure requirements.
- Boards of governors — Boards receive annual, statutory reporting on policy implementation and effectiveness, providing a firmer basis for governance oversight and risk management.
- The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities — The Ministry acquires clear statutory levers (directives, reporting powers) to standardize minimum expectations across institutions and to monitor compliance.
Who Bears the Cost
- Colleges and universities — Institutions must expend administrative resources to draft, implement, publish and periodically review policies; prepare annual board reports; respond to Ministerial directives and produce ad hoc reports to the Ministry.
- Smaller or resource‑constrained institutions — Institutions with limited student services staff or compliance capacity will face proportionally higher burdens to meet content, publication and reporting requirements and any new directive deadlines.
- Boards of governors and senior administrators — Boards will need to absorb more oversight work and evaluate effectiveness reports, which may require new governance processes and data collection.
- Student services and counselling staff — Operational implementation, ongoing data collection for 'effectiveness' reporting, and potential additional programming created to meet Ministerial directives will increase workload for front‑line staff.
- The Ministry — While the Act expands Ministerial tools, the Ministry will carry monitoring, directive drafting and reporting review costs, some of which may be unfunded and require operational capacity.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between improving student safety, equity and cost transparency through uniform, enforceable expectations and preserving institutional autonomy and predictable rule‑making. The Act solves for consistency and Ministerial oversight but does so by concentrating discretion in directives that bypass the Legislation Act’s procedural safeguards, creating trade‑offs between speed and standardization on one hand and transparency, consultation and institutional flexibility on the other.
The Act centralizes detailed policy content control with the Minister through non‑regulatory directives. Because directives under these new sections are excluded from Part III of the Legislation Act, the Act allows the Minister to impose content and timelines without the transparency, consultation and publication steps that normally accompany formal regulations.
That raises procedural questions about how comprehensively the Ministry will consult institutions or publish directive rationales, and how predictable compliance expectations will be for institutions.
The Act also leaves enforcement mechanics deliberately vague. Directives may 'specify steps that the Minister intends to take' on non‑compliance, but the statute does not enumerate sanctions, financial penalties or a graduated remediation process.
That ambiguity forces institutions to infer risk and prepare for potentially discretionary enforcement actions. Operationally, the requirement to report on 'implementation and effectiveness' places a measurement burden on institutions that must translate qualitative supports into metrics that can withstand Ministry review.
Finally, the staggered commencement (substantive Section 2 by proclamation) creates timing risk: institutions need clarity about proclamation timing and any transitional expectations to budget for staffing, training and updates to online disclosures.
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