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Differential treatment — for example, separating people in schools based on sex or religion — is not inherently against the Ontario Human Rights Code. Mandhane said we have private schools that only serve one gender or faith, but they are supplemented by a public system that allows equal access to all. She’s not sure how a human rights complaint against the two male-only campuses in a country on the other side of the planet would play out, but the province can set the tone.

“I think it actually is open to the government to make sure that schools that operate abroad don’t discriminate… and (as one minister said) that they are consistent with Canadian values,” Mandhane said Monday, adding she and her staff would always be willing to work with government on those renewed policies going forward — especially since she doesn’t expect this to be the last we’ve heard on the subject.

Photo by Jacques Boissinot / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Algonquin and Niagara are just the most recent examples. The University of Waterloo’s 2009 decision to open a campus in Dubai inspired protest on campus and off, largely because of how LGBT persons are treated in the United Arab Emirates. That campus closed in 2012, but like many schools Waterloo was, at least originally, looking to the UAE campuses as a money-making venture. And both Niagara and Algonquin expect to generate $4 and $4.4 million dollars respectively over their five-year terms in Saudi Arabia.

“My sense is that these internationalization initiatives — which really are a mechanism for universities and colleges to supplement their operating budget — that this issue won’t go away any time soon,” Mandhane said.