It’s certainly not Doug Ford’s rich friends. But that’s who he’s selling off our public education system to. Ford is only in it for himself. It’s time to tell him where our money belongs – in our backyards, not in his corporate buddies’ pockets.
Send an email to Doug Ford, your MPP and the Minister of Colleges now
Ontario’s roads, electricity, plumbing, health care, and more depend on skilled workers trained in our public colleges. With 700,000 skilled trades workers set to retire in the next 5 years, private programs just can’t meet the demand.
But since 2021, Ford has been stealing taxpayer money meant for our public colleges, and funneling it into a shady fund for private, for-profit training.
It’s a fund that operates in the dark. Unlike our public colleges, there is virtually no public data available on the funding, training goals, or outcomes of these private programs.
No public outcomes, no accountability, no financial oversight. Just $2.5 billion of our tax dollars committed to the Skills Development Fund that he can spend however, and wherever he likes – including to buy votes, and endorsements.
Meanwhile, Ford is gutting public education, stealing taxpayer money from our colleges and replacing a full college 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.
But we won’t be fooled anymore. Our kids’ futures are at stake.
While defunding our colleges, Ford has increased spending on private training by 800% since 2020. This year, he committed another $1 billion to the Skills Development Fund over the next three years – while cutting $1.4 billion from post-secondary spending over the same period of time.
More than half of the private projects awarded funding in 2025 went to recipients in the resource-rich GTA.
And just four corporations– Scale Hospitality Group, Agnico Eagle Mines, Ontario Shipyard, and Canadian Niagara Hotels – received enough funding since 2023 to keep a small public college open for a year in a community that desperately needs it.
This year alone, the Ford government cut:
- more than 10,000 faculty and staff positions, which are good jobs that strengthen our local economies
- and more than 650 public college programs
These reckless cutbacks come at a tremendous cost:
these are critical resources being stolen from us at a time when unemployment – and youth unemployment – in Ontario are at a record high.
Not everyone will go to university.
Choices for everyday Ontarians – be they young workers, or adults requiring re-skilling – are narrowing day by day.
These private trainings aren’t developed to meet labour market demands – instead, they’re going to fulfill Ford’s political and personal priorities.
What’s happening in our colleges isn’t a “crisis.” It isn’t blameless. It isn’t even a partisan issue. It’s the sell-off of public education in our backyard for Ford’s personal gain.
Thousands upon thousands of young Ontarians depend on local, public colleges for the opportunity to build a better life. But now, Ford and his greedy pigs are selling their futures away.
IT’S TIME TO
Email your MPP and the Minister of Colleges to demand that funding be reinstated for Ontario’s public college faculty, support staff and programs. We’ve already drafted the email for you, so all you have to do is fill in the form and hit send.