Faculty and support staff at all of Georgian College’s campuses are holding their collective breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
On Wednesday afternoon, the college announced through a news release that it would be temporarily pausing operations at the John Di Poce South Georgian Bay campus in Collingwood as of Sept. 1.
In the release, Georgian College president and CEO Kevin Weaver noted there have been years of declining enrolment at the South Georgian Bay campus. He said the college overall is facing declining international student enrolment, paired with a major decline in provincial funding, which has led to the situation colleges across Ontario are facing.
“This is a period of great uncertainty. Our situation continues to change,” Weaver said in an interview on Thursday. “There has been no provincial response in any way to a more sustainable funding model to date. I’m optimistic we will find a path as a sector with our provincial government to get there.”
Weaver estimated there were five jobs — some full-time, some part-time — directly impacted by the decision to close the Collingwood campus.
“Not all will be impacted immediately, and we’re working with employees on what that transition will look like,” he said. “Some contracts won’t be renewed. We want to be cautious about protecting our employees, but there will be some layoffs.”
The decision to temporarily close the Collingwood campus is the latest in a series of announcements made by the college over the past year.
In February, the college announced it would lay off 45 staff across campuses. It also said there had been 31 voluntary retirements and 10 vacancy closures as part of that announcement.
At that time, Weaver said the college faced a projected financial gap of about $45 million for 2025-26, and an estimated gap of an additional $15 million to $20 million for 2026-27.
On Thursday, Weaver said international student enrolment has dropped more than $65 million at Georgian alone over the past two years. He said the reality is, as a non-profit organization, the college has to find a way to make up that loss.
“Quite frankly, we need to make more tough decisions in the organization. I’m not in a place to speculate about what those will be, but we are looking at every facet of the operations to find ways to reduce expenses,” he said.
He said there will be more impacts to come.
“Where those impacts are and what they look like — we’re not at that point yet,” he said. “As soon as there is something to announce and I can provide more clarity on actions we are going to take, I will do so.”
Anita Arvast, president of OPSEU Local 350, which represents approximately 300 full-time and 900 part-time faculty members at Georgian, said the college isn’t alone in having to make these kinds of decisions to shutter campuses.
“People think it was only because of the reduction in international students, but it’s decades of underfunding post-secondary education at colleges specifically that got us to the point where the only way we could survive was through international student fees,” said Arvast in an interview.
“It’s system-wide. We have to keep pushing the government to come in, fund it differently and fix the broken model. When colleges are so hard-hit, it’s going to impact everybody.”
When asked how her members were feeling this week, Arvast said they’re fearful, angry and sad.
“This is very difficult news across the system,” she said. “Everybody is afraid that they’re the next one on the chopping block. That’s hard to live with while trying to go into classrooms every day.”
At this time, Georgian doesn’t have a set timeline for how long the pause in operations at the Collingwood campus will last.
When asked what will have to happen before Georgian can consider reopening the campus, Weaver said it comes down to dollars.
“There are a multitude of factors we will have to consider, and part of that is whether or not the funding model will change to the positive so ... the funding is more sustainable,” he said.
When called for comment, Collingwood Mayor Yvonne Hamlin said she was planning to bring information to council for discussion in the near future on what the town could do to help the situation.
“It’s no surprise that colleges are having to make tough decisions,” she said. “It is disappointing to hear that the college is pausing their operations (in South Georgian Bay).”
Hamlin and Collingwood town council have been vocal advocates for more post-secondary options for people in Collingwood and South Georgian Bay throughout their term.
“I’ve been working with Mr. Weaver over the past few years and I really hope we can continue to work together as he works through what the future of the South Georgian Bay campus is going to look like so we can look forward to its reopening,” she said.
The John Di Poce South Georgian Bay Georgian College campus opened to the public in 2011, though the college has offered South Georgian Bay options at various locations and online since 1984.
A transition plan is underway to provide the approximately 90 full- and part-time impacted students with options, which includes moving some of them to other Georgian campuses.
As of now, all programs in South Georgian Bay are offered at other Georgian campuses and programming will continue as planned for the 2025-26 academic year in Barrie, Midland, Muskoka, Orangeville, Orillia and Owen Sound.
