Education: 1)$6.5 million from province to expand Barrie elementary school; 2)Ontario government buys into Georgian’s research focus with $1 millon investment; 3)Universities and colleges say more funding critical to Ford’s ‘protect Ontario’ plan

1)Education: $6.5 million from province to expand Barrie elementary school

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Ian MacLennan, January 19, 2026

The Ontario government is investing $6.5 million for an expansion at Emma King Elementary School on Cundles Road East in Barrie.

The addition to the school will create 184 new elementary spaces, according to a news release from the province.

“The funding for a new addition to Emma King Elementary School in Barrie is great news for our community,” said Doug Downey, MPP for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte. “Through this investment, we’re creating opportunities for students to thrive today and well into the the future.”

Dawn Stephens, Director of Education at the Simcoe County District School Board, welcomed the investment made by the government.

“With this addition, students will continue to have the opportunity to learn and grow in their community.”

The government says it is investing $23 billion over the next 10 years to build, renew and improve schools.

2)Ontario government buys into Georgian’s research focus with $1 millon investment

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Julius Hern, January 21, 2026

Georgian College is receiving a $1 million of investment from the Ontario government aimed at strengthening advanced manufacturing research, expanding workforce development and supporting local industry across Central Ontario.

The funding from the Ontario Research Fund was announced Wednesday at the college’s Barrie campus by Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security Minister Nolan Quinn alongside president of Georgian College, Kevin Weaver.

The investment will support work at Georgian’s Centre of Industrial Simulation and Prototyping (CISP), which received a separate $1 million of federal funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) in October.

“Partnerships are the key to accelerating innovation across all sectors,” Weaver said during the announcement. “Innovation and ultimately meaningful change thrives at the intersection of government, post-secondary institutions, industry and community.”

Georgian College executive director of Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Mira Ray (left); former Ontario Colleges and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop (middle-left); Ontario Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security Minister Nolan Quinn (middle); Georgian College president Kevin Weaver (middle-left) and Ontario Red Tape Reduction Minister Andrea Khanjin (right) pose for photos after a funding announcement at Georgian’s campus in Barrie, Ont., Jan. 21, 2026. Photo—Julius Hern/Barrie360.

Georgian College is the first institution in Ontario to operate an Industry 5.0 sandbox, which allows manufacturers to work through the processes of new technologies at the College’s facilities, among other perks for the school.

“We’re not just advancing technology,” said the College’s executive director of Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Mira Ray. “We’re helping to design solutions that put people at the centre, strengthening resiliency, sustainability and collaboration across sectors.”

Quinn said research has become increasingly important amid global economic uncertainty, lauding Georgian’s CISP, which aimed to create up to 460 jobs when it was opened in 2024.

“As we face international instability that threatens our economy, it is through groundbreaking research that we will create jobs, attract investment and improve lives throughout the province,” Quinn said.

“The centre is on the forefront of advanced manufacturing supporting local businesses with cutting-edge technology, workforce development and strategic collaboration.”

Georgian’s recent announcements of three campus closures hasn’t scared off the government, with Quinn noting the province has invested $2.3 billion over the past two years to stabilize the post-secondary system to help counter the federal cap on international students.

“We are currently wrapping up a funding formula review which we have been engaging with our stakeholders including Georgian College to receive feedback for our small northern rural institutions to ensure that they are successful moving forward for the students they serve.”

Georgian officials say the research funding will also expand hands-on learning opportunities for students, allowing them to work on real-world projects and graduate with job-ready experience.

Weaver says that over time, the funding will initiate more activity from outside players and evolution of the research space, ultimately benefiting students.

“We will be able to engage more students in that type of work,” he said to Barrie360. “When we have learnings from research projects with business and industry, often that works its way back into the classroom or the lab or the learning environment.

According to the province, the $1 million investment at Georgian is part of a broader $47 million commitment supporting 195 research projects at colleges, universities and hospitals across Ontario.

One potential beneficiary from Wednesday’s announcement is Giovanni Marcelli, the chairman of Northern Transformer Corp., which is using a provincial investment to build a high-voltage power transformer facility in Innisfil.

Marcelli is relying on Georgian to provide at least 150 graduates to enter the workforce at the new facility as technicians. Much of that is due to the proximity, but he says he’s also had experience working with Georgian co-op students at the company’s facility in Maple.

“We like what they bring to the table,” Marcelli said to Barrie360, describing his goals for the partnership with the College. “We want to work with Georgian to refine the curriculum to train people that can work on building transformers. Transformers are highly technical and there is no room for error.”

“Predominantly, our partners are from the local geography in terms of business and industry that have problems to solve and look to us to work on new technology or prototyping simulation testing, whatever that case may be,” Weaver added. “If they’re successful, they’re gonna stay they’re gonna grow they’re gonna invest back in our communities more jobs in some cases… And that’s just a win-win.”

3)Universities and colleges say more funding critical to Ford’s ‘protect Ontario’ plan

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones, January 21, 2026

Ontario’s universities and colleges are looking for billion-dollar funding boosts in the province’s upcoming budget, investments they are framing as critical to Premier Doug Ford’s plan to “protect Ontario” from tariff impacts by strengthening domestic capabilities.

The post-secondary institutions say they are struggling after years of low operating funding from the government, an extended tuition fee freeze and severely curtailed revenue from international students due to federal policies.

Universities are projecting a budget shortfall of $1.3 billion by 2028-29 and colleges say they will see a sector-wide deficit of up to $1.5 billion by 2027-28.

The Council of Ontario Universities says in its pre-budget submission that its institutions are at “a breaking point” and they are calling for an additional $1.2 billion in operating funding next year, with that amount increasing to $1.6 billion by 2028-29.

“What we’re calling for is an investment into the foundation that will support Ontario growing and competing in the global economy,” the council’s president and CEO Steve Orsini said in an interview.

“We need the tools and resources to continue to enrol Ontario students and to train them in areas that the economy depends on.”

Since 2020 the number of Ontario high school students applying to a university in the province has increased by 18.5 per cent, and the way Ontario funds the sector is making it harder for tens of thousands of those students to get into a program of their choice, Orsini said.

“Without additional funding and the enrolment cap increasing, we believe there will be a lack of spaces for those students, and this will undermine Ontario’s ability to train the next generation of top talent to support our economy,” he said.

Colleges, too, have tailored their funding pitch to the Ford government’s “protect Ontario” mantra. They are looking for $1.5 billion in operational and other funding.

The schools are training workers in such key sectors as skilled trades, technology and advanced manufacturing, and some of the programs most vital to the economy are the most expensive for schools to deliver, Colleges Ontario wrote in its pre-budget submission.

“With provincial funding $7,700 per student below the national average and tuition $1,100 lower, colleges cannot expand or sustain these high-cost programs, especially with declining international revenue,” the colleges say.

“Without targeted investment, more programs and campuses may face suspension or closure.”

In the face of the low levels of provincial funding and stagnant domestic tuition revenue, Ontario colleges increasingly turned to international students, who face far steeper tuition fees that are not frozen, to shore up their finances. Since the federal government has sharply cut back levels of foreign student visas, that will remove up to $4.2 billion in revenue for colleges by 2027-28, they say.

Colleges have already cut $1.4 billion in costs, suspended more than 600 programs and eliminated more than 8,000 staff positions, they say.

A spokesperson for Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said the government has already increased operating funding by 12 per cent over the past two years, but is also in the midst of making changes to Ontario’s funding formula.

“Through meaningful consultations, we are examining how we fund priority programs, how we can better support small, rural, and northern institutions, and how we can align funding with student success outcomes to ensure graduates are job-ready and able to meet Ontario’s labour-market needs,” Bianca Giacoboni wrote in a statement.