Former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne’s signature “free” college and university tuition plan could soon cost $2 billion annually, a staggering 50 per cent higher than previous estimates, the provincial auditor general has found.Although the program, which will soon cost taxpayers $650 million more a year than the old grant-and-loan system, was designed to help students from low-income families, there is little evidence that that is happening.“We concluded that a large portion of the new OSAP recipients were already attending college of university — and paying for it by themselves or with loans — even before they qualified for the new aid,” auditor general Bonnie Lysyk said Wednesday.In her two-volume 1,128-page annual report to the legislature, Lysyk examined a slew of programs, finding cost overruns and political meddling at transportation agency Metrolinx, problems for patients without private insurance paying for health services when traveling even within Canada, and ineffective development of Toronto’s waterfront.The watchdog also found “most” elevators in Ontario do not meet safety standards and there are few penalties for scofflaw operators.She said the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA), which oversees everything from elevators to ski lifts to amusement park rides, “seldom takes the initiative to protect public safety.”Her conclusions from 15 “value-for-money” audits are aimed more at the transgressions of Wynne’s government than those of Premier Doug Ford’s administration, which was only sworn in on June 29.“A central finding in almost all of our audits this year this year was that spending of public monies did not consistently result in the cost-effective achievement of anticipated program benefits or the the proactive addressing of program risks,” she said.Ontario’s revamped student aid system, which provides low-income student ...
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