Budget cuts lead to ‘one of the largest mass layoffs in Ontario’s history’ at colleges: union

Union representatives, joined by students and community members, gathered outside Centennial College’s Story Arts campus on Wednesday to protest the cuts. The campus is expected to close in the summer of 2026 as programs are relocated.

“This is bigger than the Hudson’s Bay liquidation, which laid off 8,000 employees across Canada,” OPSEU president JP Hornick said, according to the report from CP posted in Yahoo! Finance.

The closure of Hudson’s Bay—Canada’s oldest retailer—has intensified calls from labour leaders, advocates, and lawyers for legislative reform to better protect workers when companies go under, according to a previous report.

Intake of international students

The federal government’s cap on its intake of international students had already led to layoffs at some schools in Ontario by November 2024, according to a previous report.

The cap also led to a dramatic decline in enrolment and tuition revenue, and the cancellation or suspension of more than 600 college programs, CP reported, citing an arbitrated faculty contract between the union and the College Employer Council released last week.

The report noted that 23 of 24 colleges in Ontario have seen a 48% decrease in first-semester enrolment of international students from September 2023 to September 2024. Nineteen colleges have reported current and planned staff reductions totalling more than 8,000 employees as of June. The document noted that the data were incomplete as some colleges had not reported their layoffs, according to CP.

“This crisis didn’t start today. College administrators have run our colleges into the ground while the provincial government continues to fund our colleges at the lowest rate in Canada,” said Christine Kelsey, chair of the union’s college support full-time bargaining team, in a press release. “These bad decisions have created the crisis we are in today and we are here to show our employer that we are ready to fight back.”

OPSEU/SEFPO warned that the loss of programs could worsen labour shortages in sectors such as manufacturing, health and social services, construction, and tourism. While the Ontario government recently announced $2 billion in new funding for postsecondary education, the union noted that $1.3 billion in cuts are planned for the college sector over the next three years. The union also referenced the government’s Blue Ribbon Panel, which identified chronic underfunding in the college system.

The provincial government has cited federal policy changes limiting colleges’ reliance on international student revenue as a contributing factor, according to the union. However, OPSEU/SEFPO reported that Ontario colleges had a $2.7 billion surplus in 2023-2024 and that many of the affected programs primarily served domestic students.

JP Hornick, OPSEU/SEFPO’s president, said the layoffs and program cuts are undermining a public institution that many Ontarians rely on during periods of economic uncertainty.

“If the Ford government thinks they are going to get away with stripping the livelihoods from thousands of hardworking Ontarians – they’d better brace themselves for what’s coming,” he said.

‘Unprecedented amounts of new funding’

However, a spokesperson for Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said the union’s claims against the government are “baseless and categorically false.”

“In the last 14 months alone, we have provided unprecedented amounts of new funding to our publicly assisted postsecondary sector, with over $2 billion in new funding into our colleges and universities, on top of the $5 billion we put into the sector every year,” Bianca Giacoboni told CP via email, according to the publication.

“Due to the federal government’s unilateral changes to the international student system, difficult decisions are being made across the country in the postsecondary sector,” Giacoboni said, adding that a college funding model review is set to begin this summer.

According to the Ontario government, its plan for the future of higher education and advanced research will:

• Focus on meeting the needs of all students and equipping them to succeed in rewarding careers.
• Execute a tuition fee framework that keeps education affordable for lower- and middle-income families.
• Expand work-integrated learning through academic partnerships with employers and industry and continue to focus on a bold micro-credentials strategy that will be flexible, train people faster, and rapidly meet labour market needs.
• Build a financially sustainable postsecondary education and research sector that is transparent, efficient, and accountable.
• Invest in research and innovation that will see Ontario expand the development and commercialisation of intellectual property and economic prosperity.
• Create an ecosystem that attracts and retains the world’s best researchers in Ontario and protect the value of their research for the benefit of Ontario.

Also, in an email to Human Resources Director, Michelle Ervin, media relations manager at Centennial College, said about the programs located at the Story Arts Centre: "We want to be clear: we are not closing the campus at this time. We are in the early planning stages of relocating active and ongoing programs to Progress Campus, with the move anticipated in summer 2026. 

"Relocating programs will ensure that students continue to learn in a vibrant environment with ample amenities, services, and opportunities for collaboration."