| We’ve been told a story about our college system in “crisis” for a long time – but a story is only as true as it is complete. The real story is about stealing. Resources getting sucked out of our communities – all in a scheme to buy votes and endorsements by subsidizing private companies with your public dollars. Ford is gutting public education, stealing taxpayer money from our colleges and replacing a full education with 6-12 week knock-off programs that won’t make our kids employable anywhere else. It’s selling off their future to the employer that trains them – creating the next generation of company towns. It’s the exact same model disastrously rolled out in Australia, which exploded into a debt crisis. |
| We are watching an accelerated agenda to gut public education and privatize post-secondary education for good – a project Doug Ford will complete by the end of this term. If that happens, we can all kiss our jobs goodbye. The 10,000 jobs cuts across the system, plus 650 programs shuttered to students, we’ve seen already are just the beginning. The seeds of today’s college “crisis” were planted in 2019, when the Ford government split the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities in two. On one side, colleges and universities, and on the other, a new Ministry of Training and Skills Development. Having a second ministry in place also charged with job training served two purposes: 1. Creating a privatized training ecosystem that could duplicate and compete with colleges for funding; 2. Creating a pool of money – which would grow to $2.5 billion in committed funds by 2025 – that could be spent to fulfill Ford’s personal and political goals. In 2020, Doug Ford set up a fund dedicated to “non-college training providers, businesses, and associations training apprentices” – what would become the Skills Development Fund. By 2021, a report by the Auditor General already warned that the Ford government had failed to develop “a strategic plan for the [college] sector to help mitigate the risk of a sudden decline in international students.” |
| But by that time, Ford was busy with a new project: rolling back support for outcome-driven colleges which have graduated countless proud workers, in favour of a new system. It’s a system that operates in the dark. Unlike our colleges, which are subject to reporting, there is virtually no public data available on the funding, training goals, or outcomes of SDF-funded projects. The SDF is an expensive experiment – a black box slush fund. By 2023/2024, the Ford government covered only 25% of college operating expenses – while other provinces fund about 60% of public colleges’ operating expenses. The Ford government has increased spending on private training by 800% since 2020 – an amount far beyond what the government’s own expert Blue Ribbon Panel says is needed to restore funding for colleges. Amongst hundreds of SDF recipients, and what data is publicly available, we’ve seen larger sums awarded to only a few hands: $11.1 million to Scale Hospitality Group, 2023-2025; $10 million to Agnico Eagle Mines, 2024; $10 million to Ontario Shipyards Inc, 2024; $5.5 million to Canadian Niagara Hotels, 2023-2024. The SDF grants to these four private businesses alone are big enough to fund a small public college for a year. In 2024, five of Ontario’s public colleges received $25 million or less in provincial funding transfers. Now, who are they? From 2022-2025, the funding window, Scale Hospitality Group retained a lobbyist from Atlas Strategic Advisors – the very same firm founded by Amin Massoudi, Doug Ford’s principal secretary from 2019-2022, and chair of his 2022 electoral campaign. Colleges across the province – Confederation, St. Lawrence, Loyalist, Fleming, Niagara, Fanshawe, Centennial Colleges have all suspended culinary and/or hospitality related programs related to high-demand employment sectors with labour shortages. Yet from 2022- 2025, over $20 million in SDF funding went to just two corporate Toronto-based hospitality and food service training projects – despite the 12 GTA-based public and private colleges already delivering dozens of programs in this field. In fact, according to the government’s own data, more than half of projects receiving SDF funding in 2025 went to recipients in the resource-rich GTA. Agnico Eagle Mines partnered in the first SDF funding round with Northern College. In 2025, Agnico Eagle Mines cut the college out – and was awarded $10 million in SDF funds, while Northern College posted a $6 million deficit. But Agnico Eagle Mines never left Northern College. The Northern Training Division became the Corporate Training Division, while Agnico Eagle continues to use support staff to run training on site, rent-free, and tailor the facilities for their use. These private trainings won’t set our kids up for a real future: they’re more expensive to run, diluted, with no education standards. Choices for everyday Ontarians – be they young workers, or adults requiring re-skilling – are narrowing by the day. The government will say that these SDF-funded projects are mandated to fulfill labour market needs. But many SDF-funded projects – for Northern Ontario, in particular – don’t line up with the province’s job needs. Instead, money is funnelling into projects that subsidize Ford’s rich corporate friends. This isn’t a crisis. This isn’t blameless. This isn’t even a partisan issue. It’s the sell-off of public education and our children’s futures for Ford’s personal gain. You deserve to know. So do your co-workers and neighbours. Send this email to someone you know doesn’t know the truth about what’s happening to our colleges. We know we can reverse the Ford government’s attempt to gut college education – unions and communities in Australia did just that. After a coordinated fight back against funding, job and program cuts, the Australian government stopped handing out college funding to private sector experiments and restored funding to the public system. First, we get the word out. Then – we’re going to fight back. That’s a promise. Let’s talk about it. Sign up for the Emergency Town Hall on Zoom, Monday at 7 p.m. – |
Fleming Faculty Union 