Governments regulate and control organizations, yet their role in determin- ing organizational legitimacy is largely unexamined. In the changing Cana- dian post-secondary landscape, legitimacy is an increasingly important issue for post-secondary institutions as they compete amongst themselves for ac- cess to ever-shrinking resources. Using an institutional theory framework, we analyze two examples of government policy and legislation relating to the organizational legitimacy of Canadian post-secondary institutions. Based on this analysis, we suggest a more nuanced understanding of the effects of gov- ernment’s coercive power on organizational legitimacy.