Newsroom

March 3, 2020

TORONTO, ON -

Today, the Honourable Christine Elliott, Minister of Health and Deputy Premier, announced A Roadmap to Wellness: A plan to build Ontario’s mental health and addictions system. This mental health strategy sets out to build a connected mental health and addictions system and focuses on four pillars: improving quality, expanding existing services, implementing innovative solutions, and improving access.

TORONTO, ON -

Content Warning: this press release contains upsetting subject matter regarding sexual violence.

Today, the full results from the 2018 Student Voices on Sexual Violence (SVSV) survey were released, including responses from over 160,000 post-secondary students — 117,000 of whom were university students. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) led a call-to-action for the province to conduct a climate survey to collect accurate and standardized data about student experiences with institutional responses to sexual violence. Since the survey was completed, OUSA has advocated for the  public release of the full survey dataset to support informed, evidence-based recommendations. OUSA is hopeful that the provincial government recognizes the severity of this issue and will use this opportunity to invest significantly in gender-based violence prevention and response at post-secondary campuses across Ontario.

January 31st, 2020

TORONTO, ON - OUSA releases its submission to the provincial government for Budget 2020.

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance is pleased to release its Budget 2020 submission, entitled Educated Investments: Supporting Students for a Better Future. Recent changes in post-secondary have left students feeling uncertain about their futures and worried about completing their studies, and this submission responds to these changes by highlighting the need for investment in student financial aid, mental health care, sexual violence prevention, and experiential learning opportunities. Increased support in these areas will help ensure that all willing and qualified students are able to pursue a post-secondary education in Ontario.

December 10th, 2019

TORONTO, ON - The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is proud to release our policy on improving post-secondary education for Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ Students. The paper was written, approved, and published by students to serve as a first step towards introducing improvements and to fill a gap in the policy landscape in support of gender and sexually diverse students in Ontario.

December 9th, 2019

TORONTO, ON - The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is proud to release our policy paper on Ancillary & Incidental Fees, which was recently approved at our Fall General Assembly. The paper was written and ratified by students, and it provides recommendations intended to improve the structure of ancillary and incidental fees as well as the services and programs that those fees support.

December 4th, 2019

TORONTO, ON - Today, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) released a policy paper focusing on student accessibility disability inclusion. The paper was written, approved, and published by students with the purpose of providing recommendations for improving post-secondary experiences for students with disabilities at Ontario university campuses, including increasing accessibility and improving accommodations.

December 2nd, 2019

TORONTO, ON – The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is pleased to release the third of three reports sharing the results of its biennial Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey (OPSSS), which received over 8,000 undergraduate and professional student responses across OUSA’s eight member schools. The reports cover the accessibility, affordability, and quality of post-secondary education in Ontario and are based on the results of the 2017 OPSSS.

November 18th, 2019

TORONTO, ON - This week, seventeen student leaders from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) will head to Queen’s Park to meet with MPPs and their staff. OUSA represents 150,000 students across Ontario from eight universities, and our student representatives will be advocating for OUSA’s priorities on Student Financial Aid, Sexual Violence Prevention and Response, Preparing Students for the Workforce, and Student Mental Health. 

October 15th, 2019 

TORONTO, ON - On September 10th, OUSA launched its letter-writing campaign in response to changes made to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). The OSAP letter-writing campaign allowed students to put their stories into action by writing a letter addressed to provincial leaders. The purpose of the campaign was to voice students’ concerns about the changes to OSAP. Sending over one thousand letters makes it impossible for the provincial government to ignore student concerns.

September 10th, 2019 

TORONTO, ON - Today, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) launched a letter-writing campaign in response to the provincial government’s recent changes to OSAP. Letters with students’ stories will be addressed to Premier Doug Ford, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Ross Romano, and students’ local MPPs, and the goal of the campaign is to give students disadvantaged by these changes the opportunity to share their experiences with the provincial government. OUSA hopes to make it impossible for provincial leaders to ignore the effects that the OSAP changes are having on students.