You're probably talking primarily about Ontario, because Ontario is disproportionate to British Columbia and Alberta. It is fair to say that those two jurisdictions are leaders in this type of education and in wanting to raise their profile and also leaders in working very well with universities and being able to break those barriers that certainly continue to exist in Ontario.
Part of the reason there are more universities and fewer colleges is that the college system is much more accountable. It's a different system from the university system. They are not independent corporations as the universities are, so they are accountable to the provincial governments. As a consequence, the preference for a lot of the provincial governments is to be able to maintain the costs through accountability and not see more of these institutions morph into universities, as Ryerson has.
These institutions, or my members anyway, have no interest in becoming universities, because they don't see that as the answer to the type of pedagogy they want to deliver to their students.