I'd add there was some serious influence lobbying/donations to politicians from the private colleges and even some public ones/degree mills and related entities. Ontario especially - cut public funding (Ontario higher education spending is lowest of all provinces) which flattered the budget, and opening the international students gate wide - well, all the hogs headed straight for the trough, telling the provinces it was all great and free money from abroad. Colleges especially spent lots of money expanding some of their weakest and least demanding programs (easiest to expand quickly).
Again - still, the feds took too long to introduce measures to stop the outright fraud (fake acceptances/invitations).
But the problems were NOT limited to fake acceptances. A lot of the 'real' acceptances were to dodgy and marginal institutions and programs.