Here is my reply to the article Out of Province Out of Luck in its entirety:
I have just been through the hassle of trying to get an OWSP job. I never thought of myself as an out of provincer having moved here from living in Holland for high school (that is four years of not living in Canada at all). I did move there from Alberta, but that was 7 years before I tried to apply for OSAP so that I could get a job on campus. I got a very short email that said:
“I was looking at Sean’s OSAP file and he is not eligible to apply for OSAP as he is a Alberta student. The work study program offered through OSAP is for Ontario residents only.”
How am I an Alberta student I wondered as I read the email… I have not lived there for 7 years… So I sent a short message back:
“I am an Ontario resident. I have lived in Ontario straight for the last two years.”
(I did go to Alberta for the first summer because I found a job at a refinery out there, good job if you can get it)
To which I got the reply:
“Have you lived in Ontario for at least 12 months in a row without being a full time student at a post-secondary school?”
Well, obviously not, because I wasn’t even living in Canada prior to that… it is in my record I am pretty sure. They must have access to that because they seem to ‘know’ that I am an Alberta student. Since I did not have a house in Alberta, and my parents were still living over seas for the first year that I was at Trent that means that I was not a resident of Canada by OSAP’s logic:
“That is what OSAP uses as a qualifier. If you live in Ontario for a year without going to school, you are contributing to Ontario and eligible to apply for OSAP.”
Apparently paying phone bills, utility bills, university bills, provincial sales tax (I should be exempt from that too seeing as I am an Albertan!), having an Ontario Health Card, living in Ontario, cut off from my parents by more than half of the country does not qualify me as an Ontarian let alone for the Ontario Work Study Program. What a crock… Maybe I should try applying through the TIP program.
