Canada’s largest college institution, Conestoga College, is in complete crisis.
Earlier this month, the Province released the results from its bombshell audit, showing “evidence of serious financial and governance management” by Conestoga College administrators – including luxury trips abroad, million dollar payouts, and +50% annual salary increases for senior administrators.
The details it uncovered were shocking, including:
- Approval of a 55 per cent salary increase to over $636,000 in 2024 for former president John Tibbits.
- Termination payment for former President Tibbits “that totalled 83 times the president’s monthly salary”, nearly a $4 million payout prior to his January 2026 departure
- A $23,000 trip to Italy taken by three senior leaders, and other similar trips, where the school paid for luxury accommodations, business class airfare, and premium transportation.
- Repeated and ineligible hospitality expenses approved without any proper oversight, including a $1,300 dining expense for internal senior staff, where 50 per cent of the pre-tax total was alcohol.
It was so damning that Vikki Poirier, president of the OPSEU/SEFPO Local 238 union that represents support staff at Conestoga College, has since called these findings “downright criminal”.
Raiding Students’ Wallets to Fill Administrators’ Pockets
Unfortunately, these numerous and repeated financial lapses by senior leadership have led to real harms for thousands of Conestoga students.
For years, Conestoga College has been one of Canada’s top recruiters of international students, peaking in 2023 at over 22,712 international students enrolled (see graphic below). On average international students pay five times higher tuition than domestic students, which has led to numerous cases of exploitation and suffering for these students. By aggressively pushing international student recruitment, Conestoga leadership was able to report a staggering $121 million surplus last year – something that its former administration claimed was the “result of careful planning and responsible financial management” – a quote which has aged like year-old milk.
Besides leading to serious harms for thousands of Conestoga international students, the administration’s disastrous, irresponsible financial decision-making (when paired with the recent federal cuts) has caused “one of the largest layoffs in Ontario’s college sector to date” according to the Ontario’s Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development. This “pattern of irresponsible decision making” has led to mass layoffs, major structural changes, and slashed student programs and services – all while top leadership was simultaneously receiving six figure pay bumps.
Image source: https://www.conestogac.on.ca/about
How to Respond to Your House on Fire
So with Conestoga’s senior leadership gutted and the college facing an upcoming major deficit, how do you respond if you’re the campus student union, Conestoga Students Inc.?
Conestoga Students Inc.(CSI) represents over 30,000 students across eight campuses, and is one of the largest service providers for students across the Tri-Cities.
In recent years, CSI has pushed back hard against the administration’s aggressive recruitment of international students, including the college’s rush to approve 37,000 international student permits in 2023, a 31% increase from the previous year.
This rapid rise in international enrolments has also pushed CSI to expand its role as a primary service provider for students, of which a growing number are financially-stretched and food-insecure. For example, by 2024, CSI was reporting more than a hundred students per hour accessing its free food services from its home office.
Recent years have shown that the college administration’s decisions have increasingly exposed international students to harmful situations: including well-documented cases of international students forced into working full-time jobs (often under-the-table) to pay for their studies; as well as housing scams, overcrowding, infestations, homelessness; discrimination and financial exploitation.
As the college has scaled back campus services, CSI has stepped up to fill this void – providing a wide range of services to meet student needs, including: campus food options, a student nutritional access program (SNAP), student housing supports for all 8 campuses, a campus lend program, transportation services, legal care program, scholarships and bursaries, Indigenous student supports, and more. Although it should be noted that international student cuts have also harmed CSI’s ability to provide these crucial services, causing it to scale back some food aid and transportation services last year.
Where We Are Now
The province has since fired Conestoga’s entire Board of Governors, and appointed former Colleges Ontario CEO, Linda Franklin, as its new Administrator (who I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing on CollegeCast back in 2021). Linda’s appointment is good news I’d say, as she brings a wealth of experience (although advocacy-focused) and steady hand to such a turbulent time at Conestoga.
That being said, there is always concern anytime the Province steps in to try to control higher education. We need only look back to the ugly case of Laurentian, or more recently, at Doug Ford’s insidious “Student Choice Initiative 2.0” bill, which was rammed through the legislature with the goal to cut funding to student unions across the province — whom he has previously called “crazy Marxist nonsense”. The fact that the Province did not release the audit publicly is very suspicious, and we should be wary given the recent moves Doug Ford has made to take over school boards and university admissions.
It’s also important to note that the reason Conestoga is in this mess in the first place is because the Province has been starving higher education in Ontario for almost a decade. In fact, the Ontario government’s historic underfunding of higher education is so low that they actually bring down the national average (see below).
Conestoga Students Inc. has a lot to deal with these next few months, especially in the midst of its own executive transition period. It remains to be seen how Linda Franklin, as Conestoga administrator, will steer the college going forward, and what elements the Province will introduce.
It needs to ensure that student core needs are met, especially with affordability, housing, and cost of living services. This period of instability with the administration also offers new opportunities for negotiating better deals on behalf of students (e.g. transportation passes), as well as pushing for better student representation on college decision-making bodies. Ultimately, with Conestoga students facing an uncertain future and wave of affordability challenges, the student union needs to be the rock that they depend on.
With Conestoga in crisis, what do you think needs to be done? Feel free to connect with us, and share your thoughts!
