Mass college layoffs devastate rural Ontario as over 10,000 jobs cut, 600 programs cancelled
Rural communities across Canada are facing a deepening crisis as more than 10,000 faculty and staff have been laid off and over 600 college programs suspended or cancelled across Ontario’s 24 public colleges.
“For this to happen on this scale, this isn’t just about the immediate loss of good jobs in those communities, this is also about the future of local, rural and northern economies,” OPSEU/SEFPO president JP Hornick told The Toronto Star. The mass layoffs, described by Hornick as “one of the largest mass layoffs in Ontario’s history,” stem from a financial crisis caused by plummeting international student enrolment and what the union calls “a system that has deliberately been starved of funding.”
College Employer Council CEO Graham Lloyd pushed back, saying, “any suggestion that OPSEU has not been made aware and regularly updated... is inaccurate,” while the Ministry of Colleges and Universities insisted the province has provided “over $2 billion in new funding” in the past 14 months.
Despite this, Hornick warned of “increased hopelessness” on campuses and said communities are mobilizing to “fight back” against further closures and potential privatization.
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