BizTech Institute Inc. v. Superintendent under the Ontario Career Colleges Act, 2005
Licence Appeal Tribunal File Number: 17448 OCCA
Appeal from a Notice of Proposal under the Ontario Career Colleges Act, 2005, S.O. 2005, c.28, Sched. L, to Revoke Registration
Between:
BizTech Institute Inc. Appellant
and
Superintendent of Career Colleges Respondent
DECISION AND ORDER
ADJUDICATOR: Jeffery Campbell, Vice Chair
APPEARANCES:
For the Appellant: Harpal Dharna, President and co-owner Carey Blake, Counsel
For the Respondent: Christopher P. Thompson, Counsel Mohamed M. Salama, Counsel
Held by videoconference: November 26, 27 & 28, 2025
OVERVIEW
1BizTech Institute Inc., the appellant, appeals the respondent’s Notice of Proposal dated July 16, 2025 (“NOP”) to revoke the appellant’s registration to operate a career college under s. 14(1) of the Ontario Career Colleges Act, 2005, S.O. 2005, c.28, Sched. L (the “Act”).
2The Superintendent of Career Colleges (“respondent”) proposes to revoke the appellant’s registration on the basis that the appellant no longer meets the requirement of registration pursuant to s. 14(1) of the Act.
3Harpal Dharna is the president and co-owner of the appellant.
ISSUES
4The issues to be determined are:
Has the respondent established that the appellant will not operate the career college in compliance with the Act and with the regulations, as required by subsection 14(1)(b) of the Act);
Has the respondent established that the appellant cannot be expected to be financially responsible in the operation of the career college, as required by subsection 14(1)(d) of the Act;
Has the respondent established that the appellant’s past conduct provides grounds for the belief that the career college will be operated in accordance with the law and with integrity and honesty, as required by subsection 14(1)(e) of the Act;
Has the respondent established that the appellant is carrying on activities that are in contravention of the Act or the regulations, as required by subsection 14(1)(f) of the Act;
What is the appropriate outcome?
RESULT
5The Tribunal directs the respondent to carry out the NOP.
LAW
6Pursuant to s. 14(1) of the Act, the Superintendent under the Act, must register a proposed applicant to operate a career college if the Superintendent is satisfied that the applicant meets the requirements set out in s.14(1) of the Act.
7Section 18(1) of the Act allows the Superintendent to refuse to register an applicant if the Superintendent is not satisfied that all of the requirements described in section 14(1) are met.
8The respondent accepted that it bears the onus to demonstrate the grounds for the NOP on a balance of probabilities on grounds a, b and d. The respondent bears the burden on a standard of proof of reason to believe on ground c.
9Pursuant to s. 19(6) of the Act, the Tribunal has the power to order the Superintendent to carry out the proposal, to refrain from carrying out the proposal, to attach conditions to it, or to take such other action as the Tribunal considers appropriate.
EVIDENCE AND ANALYSIS
10Arising from the issues listed, the grounds that the respondent relies upon are based upon two allegations that the appellant failed to:
A. provide refunds to Diagnostic Medical Sonography (General) students as required by paragraph 2 of s. 25 of Ontario Regulation 415/06 (the “Regulation”; and
B. provide financial security as required under s. 6 of the Act.
Timeline of Events
11The evidence put forward by both the appellant and the respondent establishes the following timeline of events:
November 8, 2007 BizTech Institutue Inc. (appellant) is registered with the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities (MCU) as a Private Career College.
October 1, 2020 The program of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (DMS) is approved with conditions by the Superintendent of Career Colleges (respondent).
November 30, 2020 Accreditation Canada notifies the appellant of its decision to accord the DMS program the status of Accredited with Condition until January 31, 2025.
June 26, 2024 Revocation by the respondent of the appellant’s previously approved Diagnostic Cardiac Sonography (DCS) program.
Aug. 13, 2024 Letter from respondent imposing conditions on the DMS program based on the DCS revocation.
Jan. 28, 2025 Notice to the appellant from Accreditation Canada that DMS program has been accorded a Not Accredited status.
Jan. 30, 2025 Letter from appellant counsel to the respondent notifying of the decision from Accreditation Canada.
March 11, 2025 Letter from the MCU to the appellant proposing to revoke the program approval of the DMS program.
March 31, 2025 Letter from the respondent revoking the DMS program.
April 1, 2025 Email and letter from the respondent to the students of the DMS program advising of the revocation of the program.
April 7, 2025 Appellant seeks Judicial Review of:
- Accreditation Canada’s decision to categorize the DMS program as not accredited. Accreditation Canada included in its response a motion seeking a stay of the appellant’s application for judicial review in favour of arbitration.
- The respondent’s revocation of the DMS program. The appellant included in its application for judicial review a motion seeking a stay of the revocation pending the disposition of the Judicial Review
April 9, 2025 Divisional Court issued a temporary stay of the respondent’s revocation of the DMS program.
April 24, 2025 Divisional Court dismissed appellant’s motion for a stay. The revocation of the DMS program was restored. Divisional Court confirms the requirement for appellant to provide refunds to the students.
May 22, 2025 Divisional Court dismissed the appellant’s application for judicial review of the respondent’s revocation of the DMS program.
May 29, 2025 The respondent (via email) directs the appellant to confirm providing refunds to all DMS students by June 13, 2025.
June 7, 2025 Appellant requests (via email) an extension of the deadline to provide refunds. That request is denied by the The respondent (via email) dated June 10, 2025.
June 12, 2025 Appellant asks for an extension until July 11, 2025. That request was denied via email dated June 17, 2025.
June 16, 2025 Appellant was advised via email that the appellant’s programs are suspended for the purposes of OSAP for the 2024-2025 academic year until payment of all refunds are made to the National Student Loans Service Centre (the “NSLSC”).
July 16, 2025 The respondent issued the Notice of Proposal to Revoke the registration of the appellant.
Sept. 4, 2025 Minutes of Settlement directing the appellant to make a Fresh Application for the DMS program.
A. Failure to provide refunds to Diagnostic Medical Sonography (General) students as required by paragraph 2 of s. 25 of Ontario Regulation 415/06
12I find that the appellant has failed to provide required refunds, thereby establishing that the appellant’s past conduct provides grounds for the belief that the career college will not be operated in accordance with the law and with integrity and honesty, as required by subsection 14(1)(e) of the Act.
13Charlotte Smaglinski is the Superintendent of Career Colleges and Director of Career Colleges Branch. Testifying on behalf of the respondent, Ms. Smaglinski testified that, to this date, none of the students enrolled in the DMS program have received a refund for their tuition and fees for that program. This is even though those refunds were triggered by the revocation of the program on March 31, 2025, and the subsequent dismissal of the motion for the stay of the revocation of the program on April 24, 2025.
14Ms. Smaglinski testified that, following the Divisional Court dismissing the appellant’s application for judicial review of the revocation of the DMS program, on May 29, 2025, she directed the appellant to confirm that it intends to provide refunds to all DMS students by June 13 2025.
15Ms. Smaglinski presented numerous emails from DMS students to the MCU, dated from May 5 to September 12, 2025, complaining of the students’ inability to receive a refund of their tuition for the revoked DMS program. Some of the excerpts from those emails are as follows:
“I attended a meeting at Biztech on April 28th 2025 with Harpal Dharna. His official statement is ‘refunds will be processed as soon as possible…We were told to wait as long as it takes even if it take up to a year!” (May 5, 2025)
“I and my classmates are particularly eager to get our money back as we are looking into continuing our efforts to become sonographers at a different school and need the money the refunds will provide us to do so.” (May 23, 2025)
“I’m confused about if Harpal intends to give us the refunds because the last time he spoke to us he seemed to think he can wait for his court case with Accreditation Canada despite the program being revoked. He’s also mentioned things like he may take as long as he wants and maybe even a year to give us refunds.” (May 27, 2025)
“At a physical meeting on May 2, 2025, Harpal Dharna explicitly stated we will not be getting refunds within 30 days and we must wait for however long it takes, even if it is up to 8 MONTHS… I am mentally, emotionally and financially distraught all as a direct result of Biztech refusing to comply with the Career Colleges acts set in place to protect us.” (June 1, 2025)
“This situation has been extremely difficult and stressful. I have been waiting over eight months for my refund, during which time I have already started repaying my OSAP loan.” (August 9, 2025)
“We are extremely concerned that BizTech College is spreading false information to the media by claiming that students want to continue studying at their school. This is not true. The overwhelming majority of us, including at least 20 students I know personally, do not want to return. We simply want our tuition refunded.” (September 8, 2025)
16Ms. Smaglinski testified that section 25(1)2 of Regulation 415/06 (the “Regulation”) triggers the entitlement of students to refunds. That section reads as follows:
“A private career college shall refund all of the fees paid by a student under a contract for the provision of a vocational program in the following circumstances:
- The private career college discontinues the vocational program before the student completes the program, subject to subsection (2).”
17With respect to the timing of the refunds, Ms. Smaglinski testified that, in the case at hand, there is no legislative deadline for the payment of the refunds, but that the expectation of the respondent is that a refund is anticipated within a reasonable amount of time. She continued that, as over ten months have passed since the triggering of the refund, the reasonable amount of time has long since passed. She testified that, while some students are not requesting refunds and would like to stay with the program (if it is reinstated), the correspondence from many students indicate that they are very distressed about not having access to their refunds.
18On the other hand, the appellant submits that the respondent lacks the authority to demand that the appellant pays the refunds to all of the students in the program. It states that not all of the students are desiring the refund and, in fact, some students wish to remain in the program.
19Hareetinder Gill and Manpreet Sodhi, both students in the DMS program at the time of revocation, testified on behalf of the appellant.
20Ms. Gill testified that she is choosing to wait for the accreditation of the DMS program to be reinstated in order to continue with that program with the appellant. She testified that she had inquired into the possibility of transferring her credits to other schools using the Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) program, however, discovered that other schools would not give full credit for her studies at the BizTech.
21Ms Sodhi also testified that she looked into the possibility of completing her DMS training at another school. She concluded, however that if she was accepted into another program, the program would take another 2 years to complete. She testified that continuing at BizTech is a better option than receiving a refund.
22Harpal Dharna, testifying on behalf of the appellant stated that at the time of the revocation, 45 students were enrolled in the DMS program. With respect to the refunds, Mr. Dharna submits that the Superintendent’s demand that the appellant refund all of the students is unreasonable. He states that only some of the students request refunds and that none have completed the required form in order to obtain it. He further testified that the non-payment of the refunds were due to the impossible situation that the respondent placed the appellant in (i.e., by the order of the respondent of August 13, 2024 prohibiting any further admissions of DMS students and the requirement to pay refunds to all of the current DMS students). Additionally, Mr. Dharna reasons that no DMS students have been paid refunds because to pay some and not others would be unfair.
23The appellant also submits that the respondent erred in the revoking the DMS program prematurely on March 21, 2025 thereby triggering the refunds. It is its position that the respondent should have waited until the decision of Judicial Review of Accreditation Canada’s decision. Additionally, the respondent should have postponed the revocation of the DMS program until the conclusion of arbitration regarding the accreditation of the program. That arbitration ultimately led to Minutes of Settlement dated September 4, 2025 allowing for the appellant to re-apply for accreditation of the DMS program, which they subsequently did.
24I cannot agree with this position. A requirement of the DMS program is that it be accredited by Accreditation Canada. Without that accreditation, graduating students are precluded from writing the credentialing examinations and to be registered with the College of Medical Radiation and Imaging Technologists of Ontario. As such, I agree that the respondent was justified in revoking the DMS program following the changing of its status to Not Accredited by Accreditation Canada.
25Secondly, the appellant submits that the respondent erred in requiring the appellant to pay refunds to all of the students in the DMS program. The appellant’s position is that the refunds are owed to the students who specifically request that refund in writing.
26It is apparent from the evidence that some of the students were not requesting a refund. Further it is apparent that students were confused as to the process and timing of receiving the refund. However, it is obvious from the evidence that Mr. Dharna was fully aware that many of the students were requiring the refund. As of the date of this hearing however, no students were provided with these refunds. I also reject Mr. Dharna’s assertion that the requests must be made by way of an arbitrary form. The requirement of s. 25(4)(b) of the Regulation (which is reflected in the appellant’s student contract) is that the refund is payable within 30 days when it is in the form of a “written demand for a refund”. For the appellant to require that the request be submitted in an arbitrary form, or for the appellant to ignore the requests for refunds which are made by email or letter is not only arbitrary and unreasonable but circumvents the plain language of the Regulation.
27The appellant also submits that the respondent erred in concluding that the appellant acted in contravention of the Act and that the respondent breached its duty of procedural fairness which it owes to the college. However, other than making this submission, the appellant has not provided further submissions on how procedural fairness was breached by the respondent and did not point or direct me to any evidence, and submissions alone are not evidence.
Conclusion re: Failure to provide refunds to Diagnostic Medical Sonography (General) students
28It is undisputed from the evidence that the appellant has yet to pay a refund to the DMS students following the revocation of the DMS program. I am satisfied that those refunds were triggered by the revocation and were payable to the students upon any simple demand in writing pursuant to s. 25(4)(b) of the Regulation. I am also satisfied from the evidence that those demands were indeed provided to the appellant but were ignored and disregarded.
29It may be that the appellant legitimately believed that the revocation of the DMS program was not justified. The appellant may have also believed that the program would be reinstated (as it is subsequently in process of a fresh application) and that the refunds would not be necessary. Also because the appellant may have believed that the respondent required them to pay all of the DMS students instead of only the students who requested the refund, it was therefore not required to pay any of the students. However, none of those beliefs or positions negate the fact that, ten months after the revocation of the DMS program, no students who requested refunds have received them. I note the words of the Divisional Court:
“Between January 23, 2025, and February 26, 2025, the respondent received approximately 14 written concerns or complaints from students in the DMS program. These complaints mirror the unenviable choice referred to above. The students express financial and emotional distress and feel trapped – the college is refusing to refund their fees to allow them to seek training elsewhere, with the result that they are forced to remain in an unaccredited program…” (Biztech Institute Inc. v. Accreditation Canada, 2025 ONSC 2455 paragraph 17; released April 24, 2025)
30The same students referred to in the above decision continue in the same situation as they were in April, 2025 due to the refusal of the appellant to provide to the students their warranted refunds. Evidence shows that despite repeated directions and student requests, the appellant has not refunded any DMS students. Numerous student emails demonstrate financial and emotional distress. The Tribunal rejects the appellant’s argument that refunds require a specific form or that they can be delayed indefinitely. The Regulation requires refunds within 30 days of a written demand, and emails and letters qualify.
31The appellant’s refusal to simply comply is unreasonable and undermines confidence in its integrity. The Divisional Court has already confirmed the refund obligation. Ten months have come and gone, yet no refunds have been issued. I conclude that this establishes, on a balance of probabilities, that the appellant will not operate the career college in compliance with the Act and with the regulations as required by subsection 14(1)(b) of the Act. I further conclude that the past conduct of the Registrant (the appellant) provides grounds for the belief that the career college will not be operated in accordance with the law and with integrity and honesty, as required by subsection 14(1)(e) of the Act. Based upon those conclusions, I find that the respondent has established the grounds for the NOP.
32As I have found that the respondent has established the grounds under ss. 14(1)(b) and 14(1)(e) of the Act as set forth in the Notice of Proposal to revoke the appellant’s registration, it is not necessary for me to consider the allegation of the appellant’s failure to provide financial security as required under s. 6 of the Act.
What is the Appropriate Outcome
33Section 19 (6) of the Act authorizes the Tribunal to, by way of order, direct the respondent to:
(a) to carry out the proposal specified in the notice;
(b) to refrain from carrying out the proposal;
(c) to attach such conditions to a registration as the Tribunal considers appropriate; or
(d) to take such other action as the Tribunal considers appropriate. 2005, c. 28, Sched. L, s. 19 (6).
34The appellant requested that, if the Tribunal finds that the respondent has established the grounds for the NOP, the Tribunal attach the following conditions in the place of ordering the respondent to carry out the proposal:
- Un-revoke the Sonographic program
The respondent submits that this was earlier sought by the appellant in Judicial Review. The Divisional Court considered this request and denied it.
I agree with the Superintendent. This request has already been litigated and determined by the Divisional Court. I decline therefore to impose this condition.
- Reinstate OSAP status.
The respondent submits that it is outside of Superintendent’s power to make government loan decisions. It is also outside of the matter which is before the Tribunal.
Again, I agree with the Superintendent. The decision of the NHSLC is not before the Tribunal, nor does the Tribunal have jurisdiction over its decision. Also, the respondent has no authority to carry out this proposed condition.
I decline therefore to impose this condition.
- Order that within 90 days from January 1, 2026 to give all students whom request refunds be refunded. If this is not met, the ministries proposal stands.
The respondent submits that there should be no more delay in ordering refunds to students.
I concur with the Superintendent. There has been no indication from the appellant that would adhere to a condition to pay refunds upon the threat of revocation, as, since the NOP no refunds have been offered to any students. Based upon the appellant’s past behaviour, I fail to find any assurance that future promises to pay refunds would be met in a timely fashion.
I decline therefore to impose this condition.
- Lift the condition that the DMS program cannot enroll new students.
Given that the DMS program continues to be non-accredited with Accreditation Canada, I decline to impose this condition.
- For the MCU to provide a more clear explanation as to how they came up with the amount of financial security required and for the MCU to provide a reasonable time to pay the security monies required. The MCU would have 90 days from January 1, 2026 for this explanation to be provided.
The respondent submits that the issue of amount of financial security payable to the MCU has been known since February 2025 and no further time or explanation is necessary to canvas this matter. Also, since the requirement to pay financial security since February, there has been no effort on the part of the appellant to pay any amount towards that security.
I agree with the respondent in that there has been ample time in which the appellant had to request further explanations on the amount of financial security required and to make some efforts to pay at least a partial amount of that security.
I decline therefore to impose this condition.
35As no proposed conditions are acceptable to the Tribunal, and as I have found that the respondent has established on a balance of probabilities that the appellant will not operate the career college in compliance with the Act and with the regulations, as required by subsection 14(1)(b) of the Act, and that the appellant’s past conduct of the appellant provides grounds for the belief that the career college will be operated in accordance with the law and with integrity and honesty, as required by subsection 14(1)(e) of the Act, I order the respondent to carry out its proposal.
ORDER
36Pursuant to section 19(6) of the Act, the Tribunal directs the respondent to carry out the proposal specified in the NOP.
LICENCE APPEAL TRIBUNAL
_______________________
Jeffery Campbell, Vice-Chair
Released: January 12, 2026