During the 2018 Provincial Election in which the PC Party of Ontario was elected to a majority government, the party pledged to mandate the universities uphold free speech on campuses and in classrooms. On August 30th, the Ontario government announced that post-secondary institutions in Ontario will be required to develop free speech policies by January 1, 2019.
The policies must meet a minimum standard that will be set by the government and will be required to protect free speech on campus, while still ensuring that discrimination, hate speech, and other illegal forms of expression are prohibited from occurring on post-secondary campuses. Following the implementation of these policies, post-secondary institutions will be required to annually report their progress to the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.