Moridi says Queen’s Park will look at closing gap in approval process
Province OK’d male-only Saudi campuses: minister
TORONTO — Ontario’s Liberal government says it allowed two colleges to create male-only campuses in Saudi Arabia, but added that a gap found in the approval process will be closed.
Reza Moridi, minister of colleges and universities, said Monday that Niagara and Algonquin Colleges applied to his ministry to establish the two Saudi campuses, and were given the green light by a previous minister in 2008 and 2012.
However, Moridi said the province’s responsibility was to approve financial plans for the two Saudi expansions and it was up to the colleges to determine who was admitted.
“We see there is a gap in the process between the parts that are left for the boards of governors at the colleges to approve and the other parts that are on the government’s side to approve,” he said. “We want to talk with the sector to make sure that gap is eliminated.”
John Milloy, Moridi’s predecessor as minister of training, colleges and universities when Algonquin and Niagara applied to open their Saudi campuses, said he doesn’t remember any discussions about them excluding women from classes.
“I do not ever recall any talk of a male-only campus,” Milloy, now an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, said in an email to The Canadian Press.
Premier Kathleen Wynne said Friday she’d just learned that the Saudi campuses of the two Ontario colleges did not admit women, a situation she called “unacceptable.
The opposition parties called it a “stretch” for Wynne to say she didn’t know that Algonquin and Niagara were operating male-only Saudi campuses.
“She was part of the cabinet all those years and premier for three years, and that this is news (to the premier) is really quite disconcerting,” said NDP post-secondary critic Peggy Sattler. “If they didn’t know, why not?”
Approving the Saudi campuses without knowing they would be male-only shows how poor a job the Liberals do of managing taxpayers’ money, said Progressive Conservative women’s issues critic Lori Scott.
“A gap in the process is kind of weak. It’s the total lack of oversight by the government,” said Scott. “Where’s the accountability?”
Algonquin lost a bid to establish a women’s college in Saudi Arabia — where Shariah law forbids educating men and women in the same class — and questioned Wynne’s criticism of its male-only campus in the city of Jazan.
“We are seeking clarification around the premier’s comments and will have more to say on this topic when we have that clarification,” said Algonquin’s Scott Anderson.
“Since the beginning, Algonquin has been open and transparent about the college’s work in Saudi Arabia ... providing regular updates to our board and to the Ontario government.”
Niagara College said it trained 120 women in medical office administration at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Saudi Arabia, but its campus in the city of Taif offers programs for men only.
Moridi wouldn’t say if Algonquin and Niagara would have to shut their Saudi operations if they can’t also open women’s colleges in the kingdom.
Moridi’s office will work with Algonquin to try and secure approval to open a women’s campus in Saudi Arabia.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents f aculty at the colleges, said it has been writing Wynne for eight months to oppose the Saudi campuses because of that country’s “terrible” human rights record.
The union and the opposition parties said Ontario colleges are chronically underfunded and are turning to international expansion projects to raise badly needed money.
Ontario provides $1.44 billion in funding to its 24 community colleges, with Algonquin getting $103 million in the current fiscal year and Niagara College $45 million.