Loyalist College faculty, support staff and students braved the cold weather Wednesday for a noon hour rally to call out the Ford government for its underfunding and privatization of Ontario’s public colleges.
Tracy MacKenzie, professor and OPSEU Local 420 Faculty Union president says it’s been a difficult few weeks since Loyalist announced the suspension of 30 per cent of its programs to be accompanied by numerous layoffs.
Several other colleges have made similar announcements since the federal government capped international students last year, an avenue the schools turned to because they were not receiving enough funding from the provincial
government.
MacKenzie says these cuts impact the entire community.
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“Many of our programs that are being cut, culinary, esthetics, carpentry, all of them really, if you look at them are in demand fields that our community employers need graduates for. And we have a recruiting crisis in those fields and without these programs, the entire communities are going to suffer.”
She says the province has been underfunding post-secondary education for many years leading to a significant financial crisis.
Loyalist College staff, support staff and students held a rally to protest provincial underfunding and privatization of Ontario’s colleges, February 19, 2025. (Photo: submitted)
With the provincial election just over a week away, union members say they want to make post-secondary education and Ontario public colleges an election issue.
Tim Prewer, co-ordinator of Loyalist’s IT Service Desk and president of OPSEU Local 421 Support Staff says it’s time to save our colleges.
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“It’s time to fund our colleges properly so that we can support not only the colleges but the community as well. We’re a big part of this community being a small rural college, we really have an impact on our local economy.”
The union is calling for an increase in provincial per-student funding to the national average along with immediate bridge funding to help preserve programs and staff.
It’s also calling for changes to the college’s funding formula to allow more domestic enrolment and more money to be invested in full-time faculty and support staff.
