The Ford government plans to effectively ban international students at Ontario’s medical schools, instead allocating almost every place in the province to local applicants.
The government announced the move in Oshawa on Friday morning, claiming it would keep more medical graduates in Ontario and help to close the gap for roughly 2.5 million people who don’t have a family doctor.
“Today’s announcement is the latest step in our plan to connect every person in Ontario, no matter where they live, to primary care,” Premier Doug Ford said.
“We’re training more family doctors than ever before, helping them live, learn and stay in Ontario, and we’re helping Ontario students support and remain in our province by prioritizing them for medical school seats in Ontario schools.”
The move will come via legislation that hasn’t been tabled yet and will require Ontario medical schools to give 95 per cent of their places to students from within the province. The remaining five per cent of places will be allocated to students from other parts of Canada.
The government said the new restrictions would come into force in the fall of 2026.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the move was important because domestic taxes cover a significant portion of the cost of educating new doctors.
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“We are going to prioritize Ontario residents because those are our taxpayers that are paying those students to go to school,” she said.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the move could throttle the number of doctors by limiting who can apply.
“We need more doctors, not less,” she said. “At a time when we more than two million people without a family doctor, we want to see more publicly funded residency positions. As always, this government’s priorities are in all the wrong places.”
The announcement comes about half a year after Ford said his “number one pet peeve” was the number of Ontario students who had to study medicine abroad, and the international students who he said left upon graduation.
At an event in April, Ford said he had been told that roughly 18 per cent of students at Ontario colleges and universities are international students.
“Get rid of the 18 per cent,” Ford said. “I’m not being mean, but I’m taking care of our students, our kids first.”
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Friday’s announcement also means the province will cover the cost of medical school for 1,000 students, on condition they commit to staying in Ontario and becoming family doctors when they graduate.
The grant program, also beginning in 2026, is expected to cost $88 million and be extended to 1,360 eligible undergraduate students. The province says the program should allow 1.36 million more Ontarians to connect to primary care.
In a seemingly off-the-cuff remark, Ford also promised on Friday to work out how to help current medical students with the cost of their education.
“I’m trying to backdate this for a year or two because I’m sure some of you have debt from medical school,” Ford said to a cohort of students gathered behind him for the announcement in Oshawa.
He told them he would push his finance minister — “Mr. Moneybags” — to find a way to cover some of their costs.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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