LTE: Turning Our Colleges into Corporate Training Camps

This morning, I went down to St. Lawrence College to show support for the OPSEU strikers. These are the people who keep the college running: the support staff who help students, maintain facilities, manage IT, and handle all the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the place functioning. They’re standing up for something that should not be up for debate: the right to keep public education public. I came home frustrated and angry, because what’s happening there is a dismantling of our college system.

In the name of “efficiency,” Doug Ford’s government has been quietly funnelling billions from public education into his “ Skills Development Fund” ,  a $2.5 billion program that hands public money to private companies so they can train their own workers for their own needs. Instead of investing that money in public colleges that educate across a range of fields and serve entire communities, Ford is funding narrow, short-term programs tailored to the specific needs of individual companies. Call me crazy, but I think these businesses should be paying for their own staff training, not using taxpayer dollars meant for education.

Here in Cornwall, that “efficiency” means library closures, job cuts, and gutted student services. What kind of “efficiency” or “savings” are we supposed to applaud here? They replaced the librarian with a book vending machine. If that’s progress, count me out.

Province-wide, it has meant thousands of lost positions, hundreds of cancelled programs, and a government bragging about “innovation” while starving public institutions of resources. The workers walking the line aren’t the problem; they’re the ones keeping what’s left of the system running.

I’ve seen this pattern before. Ford promised to “modernize” healthcare too: no more hallway medicine, faster access, and better outcomes. Yet Ontario’s health budget has ballooned from $61 billion to $81 billion since 2018, and wait times are worse than ever. So where’s all that money going?

This pattern isn’t about reform or modernization. It’s an inverse Robin Hood scheme: taking from working people to give to the wealthy and well-connected. When a government consistently works against its own citizens, that’s not democracy. It’s oligarchy.

Perhaps we should ask Ford’s local representative, MPP Quinn, how this is supposed to benefit us.

Louise Mignault, President, Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry NDP Riding Association
Cornwall, Ontario