Collège Boréal receives close to $4 million for trades training

The province has provided Collège Boréal with close to $4 million to support trades training at the college.

The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund is giving the college $3.5 million to construct a 80,741 square foot trades training centre.

With an additional surface of approximately 81,000 square feet, Collège Boréal’s new Institute of Trades will increase the college's Sudbury campus to nearly 417,000 square feet.

The province already invested $5.5 million in the project in May 2009 through the Strategic Capital Infrastructure Program.

Thus, the number of students likely to benefit from these new trades programs in French will increase to more than 700. Among these programs which will be taught in the new building will be masonry, painter/decorator, health and safety and milling machinist.

In addition, the college will receive $282,203 to deliver electrician training to women through the Women in Skilled Trades program, as well as $175,000 for pre-apprenticeship training projects.

The president of Collège Boréal, Denis Hubert, stresses the importance of this new funding to helping francophones get an education 

“Thanks to this contribution from the provincial government, Collège Boréal will be able to develop new programs that are yet inaccessible to most of the French-speaking citizens of the province,” he said, in a press release.

“By allowing students of the French-language school boards, the graduates of immersion programs, French-speaking Native and Métis people as well as French-speaking immigrants to have access to a wider choice of programs offered in their language, Collège Boréal intends to contribute to the advancement of the Franco-Ontarian culture while reinforcing its participation in the economic development of our province.”