- Premier Ford bans foreign undergrad medical students starting fall of 2026
- 95% of seats will be reserved for Ontario-based students, the rest for other Canadians
- The move is meant to increase the number of doctors who choose to stay in province
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he’s going to ban foreign students from medical schools starting in the fall of 2026.
The Premier will reserve 95% of seats in medical schools for Ontario-based students, with the other 5% coming from other parts of Canada. In other words, it’s a full-out ban on foreign students.
“There was 18% students from around the world taking our kids’ seats and then not even staying here and going back to their country, and it’s just not right,” Ford told reporters on Friday.
The move comes after a recent finding released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information that showed 12% of Ontarians are without a family doctor.
The Ford Government appointed a new health minister earlier this week, former federal Liberal health minister Jane Philpott. Philpott has been tasked with ensuring Ontarian has a primary care doctor by 2029.
“She’s going to be on the ground fixing that gap,” Ford said.
Trudeau booted Philpott
Philpott left her federal role after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin scandal. In 2019, Philpott resigned from the cabinet, citing a loss of confidence in the government’s handling of the scandal.
Shortly after, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally removed her from the Liberal caucus, along with Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould, after Wilson-Raybould refused to intervene in a criminal prosecution involving SNC-Lavalin.
