If you're an entrepreneur, you know that protecting your intellectual property should be high on your list when it comes to safeguarding your company. However, as a successful business owner, you also know the steps and costs of filing a trademark in the U.S. can be expensive and arduous.
This conundrum can be even more overwhelming for new business owners who want to do everything possible to minimize the price of securing trademarks. They try to handle complicated tasks like trademark registration on their own, which can be a big mistake - especially when juggling the day-to-day tasks of running a business. You may be thinking, "But what about those set-it-and-forget-it services you can find online? All you have to do is plug in your info, and you're done." Using pre-made templates for trademark filing can be tempting, but doing so can leave you with inadequate protection and hurt you in the long run.
So, what is the easiest, most cost-effective route to consider that also minimizes legal risk? The truth is, before you spend money on an online filing service, it's best to consult with a trademark attorney working with clients in Kitchener, Ontario.
At Sausser Summers, PC, our experienced trademark attorneys can help you understand the trademark process step by step. We can even help with U.S. trademark filing, U.S. trademark responses, and U.S. trademark renewals at a price you can actually afford. That way, you can make an informed decision regarding your business without having to break the bank.
Hiring an attorney can be a daunting task, but at Sausser Summers, PC, our goal is to make the process as simple and seamless as possible for you. That's why we offer a straightforward checkout service. First, you choose your flat fee trademark service and fill out a short questionnaire. Then, we will contact you within 24 hours to discuss the details of our service. From there, one of our experienced trademark attorneys will get to work on your behalf.
Using a trademark attorney for filing in Kitchener, Ontario, can significantly increase your chances of a successful registration. The U.S. government recommends hiring a trademark attorney to help with your application, and our team of trademark lawyers is dedicated to meeting your needs. In fact, we help ensure your application is filed correctly the first time so you can get on with your life and avoid legal risks.
At Sausser Summers, PC, we work closely with our clients to understand their needs and provide them with sound professional advice. We never offer incomplete services, such as simply filing for registration, because that would leave you open to legal risks. You can rely on us to handle your intellectual property matters, and our flat fee services can help protect your business in a simple, straightforward, and affordable way. It's really that simple.
In terms of filing a U.S. trademark, we provide an easy three-step process to protect your intellectual property:
1. You provide your trademark info to our team via an online form.
2. Our team performs a comprehensive trademark search. This search ensures that no other marks will prevent you from registering your trademark in the U.S. Once performed, we'll send you a legal opinion letter that details our findings.
3. Sausser Summers, PC, files your U.S. trademark application. We are then listed as your Attorney of Record on file. From there, we'll provide ongoing updates regarding the status of your trademark as it works through the registration process.
The bottom line? At Sausser Summers, PC, we give both new and seasoned business owners an easy, efficient, cost-effective way to protect the one asset that sets them apart from others: their name.
At Sausser Summers, PC, we give both new and seasoned business owners an easy, efficient, cost-effective way to protect the one asset that sets them apart from others: their name.
It's not necessary to be a lawyer in order to apply for a trademark. Anyone can submit a trademark application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). However, registering a trademark involves more than just filling out a form. It's essential to conduct thorough research, accurately identify and clearly explain your trademark to ensure it receives adequate protection. And even after securing a trademark, you've got to monitor it consistently to make sure it's free from infringement.
The big takeaway here is that it's always a good idea to work with a trademark attorney to protect the intellectual property that you've worked so hard to establish. According to the Wall Street Journal, applicants are approximately 50% more likely to secure their trademark than people who file applications on their own. If your trademark application is rejected by the USPTO, you will need to revise and refile it, incurring additional filing fees. To avoid delays and extra costs, it is best to have a trademark lawyer help you get it right the first time.
Great trademark attorneys (like those you'll find at Sausser Summers, PC) will help with every step of filing and enforcing your trademark. Some additional benefits include the following:
Check to see if your proposed trademark is registered by another entity.
Conduct research to see if another business is using the trademark for which you're applying.
Provide advice and guidance on the strength of your trademark.
Draft and submit your trademark applications and application revisions.
Advice and guidance regarding trademark maintenance and protection.
Monitor the market for unauthorized use of your trademark.
Trademark enforcement to protect you against infringement.
Curious whether our trademark attorney services are right for you and your business? Contact Sausser Summer, PC, today. Let's talk about what you need, and how we can help.
Online services, can provide you with basic assistance in filing your trademark. However, they will never be a legitimate substitute for an experienced trademark attorney helping clients in Kitchener, Ontario.
Although online filing services offer a step-by-step process, they take a one-size-fits-all approach to preparing legal documents. Even their advanced service only provides basic attorney assistance in completing your paperwork and helping with minor roadblocks. Online filing services' disclaimer highlights the many limitations of its services, including the fact that communications are not protected by attorney-client privilege. In addition, online filing services cannot provide advice, explanations, opinions, recommendations, or any kind of legal guidance on possible legal rights, remedies, defenses, options, selection of forms or strategies.
In other words, online filing services can offer you the necessary forms and point you in the right direction, but they cannot customize their services to your specific needs or help you with serious complications that may arise.
For the most comprehensive trademark service and protection, it's always wise to work with highly rated trademark lawyers, like you'll find at Sausser Summers, PC.
Trademarks in the U.S. can last indefinitely, but did you know that clients in Kitchener, Ontario can file a trademark online, only to lose protection in some circumstances? Trademarks differ from patents and copyrights in that they do not have an expiration date. However, to prevent the cancellation of a trademark, you must maintain it. To ensure that your trademark remains protected, you must actively use it in commerce and renew it with the USPTO every ten years.
The Lanham Act tells us that "use in commerce" is the legitimate use of a trademark in the ordinary course of trade. In other words, you cannot register a trademark solely to reserve the rights to it in the future. In most cases, a trademark must be used continuously in connection with the goods or services it is registered for.
Trademarks are registered with the USPTO and generally need to be renewed every ten years. However, there is one crucial exception that you should be aware of. Within the first ten years of owning a trademark, you must file for renewal between the fifth and sixth year from the date of your initial registration.
During this renewal period, you are required to submit a Section 8 declaration, a specimen that shows how the mark is being used, and pay the required fee. You can also apply for Section 15 Incontestability status, which can strengthen your trademark rights. This application, although not mandatory, can make it harder for others to challenge your ownership of the mark.
After the first renewal, which falls between the fifth and sixth year of ownership, the next renewal filing is due between the ninth and tenth year, and then every tenth year thereafter. In the ninth year you will need to file a Section 8 declaration, attesting to your use of the mark or excusable nonuse. You've also got to file a Section 9 renewal application before the end of the tenth year to keep your registration active.
It is worth noting that the USPTO provides a six-month grace period if you fail to renew your mark within the required time frame, but it is best not to rely on it. If you don't file within the grace period time limits, the USPTO will cancel and expire your mark.
By hiring trademark attorneys helping clients in Kitchener, Ontario, you can avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that can arise and cause you to lose your rights to the mark that represents it.
In the event that you stop using your trademark and have no plans to resume using it in commerce, it may be considered abandoned by the USPTO. This could result in the loss of your protective rights to the mark. Typically, a trademark is assumed to be abandoned if it has not been used for three years. However, you may be able to refute this presumption by providing evidence that you intend to use the mark again in the future.
In addition to trademark abandonment, you should also be wary of improper licensing. It's important to remember that once you allow someone else to use your trademark, you must keep an eye on how they use it. You should monitor the products or services that feature your trademark to ensure that they meet consumers' expectations in terms of quality. Failure to do so can lead to a "naked" trademark license and the loss of your protective trademark rights.
If you're wondering how you can avoid refiling your trademark, the answer is simple: file it correctly the first time around. Filing a trademark isn't inherently difficult, but when doing so, it's very important that certain aspects are filled out accurately in your application. If any information is missing or incorrect, the trademark application may be considered "void ab initio" or void from the beginning, requiring you to file again.
To avoid this, make sure that the information you provide in the application is accurate and complete, including the ownership of the trademark. For instance, if a corporation has multiple shareholders, it should not file under the President's personal name. The rightful owner should be the one/entity that ultimately controls the trademark and the associated goods/services.
It is also important to ensure that the goods and/or services description is precise. For example, if you sell electronic products, you should not file for research and development services despite having a research and development department. The goods/services description should reflect the goods/services you offer to customers, not the departments within your business.
Additionally, providing accurate dates of first use when filing for a trademark is crucial. The USPTO requires two dates to be specified - the date of first use anywhere and the date of first use in interstate commerce. Contact our trademark law office today to learn more about having accurate dates on your filing paperwork.
At Sausser Summers, PC, we often get questions about how to distinguish run-of-the-mill consultants and others from great trademark attorneys. After all - when you're looking for an attorney to file or prosecute your business trademark, you should know their qualifications. Here are three ways you can separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff when it comes to trademark attorneys.
It's crucial to seek legal advice from a licensed trademark lawyer rather than relying on advice from non-professionals like trademark consultants. The USPTO even recommends hiring an attorney to help with the trademark process. Although trademark consultants may provide advice on trademark availability or name marketability, they cannot file the trademark for you or offer legal advice. According to the Rules of Practicing in trademark cases, "Individuals who are not attorneys are not recognized to practice before the Office in trademark matters." This rule applies to individuals who assist trademark applicants.
When searching for a trademark attorney, it's important to find someone with a strong background in trademark law. Look for an attorney who specializes in this area and has significant experience handling trademark-related cases. Avoid lawyers who don't have expertise in this field, as they may not be able to provide the guidance and support you need.
Ensure your attorney provides updates throughout the trademark registration process to avoid missing deadlines, including responding to any Office actions within six months. Failure to do so can result in trademark abandonment. The USPTO will only correspond with the listed attorney of record, so make sure your attorney keeps you informed.
In summary:
Building your brand and gaining recognition for it is a significant achievement, and it's important to protect it. However, there are certain pitfalls and mistakes that can arise, causing you to lose your rights to the mark that represents it. By working with knowledgeable trademark attorneys, you can avoid these issues and file your trademark successfully.
With an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Sausser Summers, PC, offers comprehensive guidance, strategic advice, and reliable representation for a variety of trademark matters. Our attorneys have years of real-world experience and, having registered countless trademarks with the USPTO, provide our clients with individualized representation when they need it most.
If you're looking for skilled, adept, and experienced counsel, look no further than our trademark law firm. Contact us today to schedule your initial consultation and learn how we can help you safeguard your brand.
Kitchener, ON – The Rangers welcomed 45 players to Kitchener for fitness testing, four on-ice sessions, and tours of Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. Rangers’ newly drafted prospects from the 2024 OHL Priority Selection and 2024 U-18 Priority Selection, prospects from previous OHL Priority Selections, as well as free agent invites were in attendance. There were two teams made up of 12 forwards, eight defencemen, and two/three goaltenders. Both teams practiced Friday evening before playing each other twice on Saturd...
Kitchener, ON – The Rangers welcomed 45 players to Kitchener for fitness testing, four on-ice sessions, and tours of Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. Rangers’ newly drafted prospects from the 2024 OHL Priority Selection and 2024 U-18 Priority Selection, prospects from previous OHL Priority Selections, as well as free agent invites were in attendance. There were two teams made up of 12 forwards, eight defencemen, and two/three goaltenders. Both teams practiced Friday evening before playing each other twice on Saturday and once on Sunday morning.
“Our new prospects showed great enthusiasm hitting the ice this weekend,” said General Manager Mike McKenzie. “It was also great to see the significant growth in our older prospects throughout the year and we’re excited about the talent we have here.”
GAME ONE: 6-5 Team Blue
TEAM BLUE (GOALS-ASSIST-ASSIST) | TEAM WHITE (GOALS-ASSIST-ASSIST) |
Meireles-Anstis-Jankovich | Zimmerman-Romano |
Carrier-Campbell | Wang-Romaniuk |
Cameron-Biser-Peters | Romano-Modopoulos-Schneider |
Lam-Stark | LaBrash-Giordano |
Drennan | Headrick-Romano-McLennan |
Anstis-Drennan |
GAME TWO: 7-1 Team White
TEAM BLUE (GOALS-ASSIST-ASSIST) | TEAM WHITE (GOALS-ASSIST-ASSIST) |
Gaitens | Giordano-Romano |
Arquette | |
Romano | |
Hlacar-Modopoulos | |
Zimmerman | |
Headrick-Arquette | |
Stark |
GAME THREE: 6-3 Team White
TEAM BLUE (GOALS-ASSIST-ASSIST) | TEAM WHITE (GOALS-ASSIST-ASSIST) |
Anstis-Romano-Bilecki | Wang-McLennan |
Cameron | Arquette-Xu |
Biser | Giordano |
Shank-Stark-Schneider | |
Romaniuk | |
Giordano |
To follow along with Rangers updates throughout the offseason follow us on social media @OHLRangers, sign up for our newsletter, or stay tuned on kitchenerrangers.com.
A vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., has bottled a 2021 field blend wine in reused bottles for the first time.Stratus Vineyards collaborated on the intiative with Circulr in Kitchener, Ont., a company that provides reusable packaging like jars for stores and other retailers.Stratus gathered used wine bottles from customers and collected bottles from the winery's tasting room, then gave them to Circulr to figure out how to properly process them so they could be used again."This has never really been done before i...
A vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., has bottled a 2021 field blend wine in reused bottles for the first time.
Stratus Vineyards collaborated on the intiative with Circulr in Kitchener, Ont., a company that provides reusable packaging like jars for stores and other retailers.
Stratus gathered used wine bottles from customers and collected bottles from the winery's tasting room, then gave them to Circulr to figure out how to properly process them so they could be used again.
"This has never really been done before in Ontario," Circulr co-founder Tyler De Sousa said in an interview on CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition.
"We had conversations, I think over two years ago now, about how we wanted to do this and it was something we wanted to pursue."
Stratus collected 50 cases of bottles for Circulr to test. They had to figure out what could be done with the screw caps, how to properly wash and sanitize the bottles and how to remove the labels.
"The labels that are on there ... they've sort of been built up over years and years to be bulletproof pretty much to make sure that they don't come off after a decade or two of aging. So it's a long process to get the labels off," he said.
"Once the label's off, the hard part is done."
WATCH | Ontario winery to resuse bottles:
6 days ago
Duration 2:27
An Ontario wine company has announced its going to release a new wine in bottles that are being used a second time. A Kitchener company is helping to sterilize them and return them into circulation. CBC K-W's Craig Norris speaks with Dean Stoyka of Stratus Vineyards in Niagara-on-the-Lake and Tyler De Sousa, co-founder of Circulr in Kitchener.
Currently in Ontario wine bottles are recycled through blue bin systems or by people who return them to The Beer Store, which runs a recycling program.
The practice of reusing wine bottles is more popular in Europe. The group Zero Waste Europe reported in 2021 that as part of a reWINE case study, 82,239 glass bottles were reused by wineries, which saved an estimated 171,058 tonnes of CO2, which is the equivalent to the amount of emissions a car would produce while travelling 11 times around the world.
The case study was done in Spain by the company Rezero between 2016 and 2020 and involved 99 stakeholders, from wineries to stores and restaurants and municipal waste collection points.
Marta Beltran, project director at Rezero, said in the 2021 release about the case study that the project "clearly shows the positive impact of wine bottle reuse on climate change mitigation and is key for the transition of the sector towards zero waste."
But, Beltran added, in order to make wine bottle reuse successful there would need to be an investment in the tools to make it happen and government regulations would need to be in place.
Reusing wine bottles is an idea Ashley Wallis applauds. She's the associate director of Environmental Defence, and the group wrote a paper in 2011 advocating for refillable wine bottles in Ontario.
"Despite nearly 80 per cent of glass wine and liquor bottles being returned to The Beer Store through the province's highly successful deposit return program, these bottles have not up to this point been reused. This is a missed opportunity, and one we're happy to see local wineries, like Stratus, address," Wallis said in an email to CBC News.
She said it takes a lot of energy and resources to make products that are used briefly before they're thrown away.
"We need to massively reduce the amount of single-use products and packaging in our economy, and favour non-toxic, low-carbon reuse systems. Reusing glass wine bottles, at a regional or local level, is just the kind of initiative we need more of," she said.
Wallis also said there's no reason to stop at wine bottles. Environmental Defence has been calling on the province to broaden the deposit return program to include pop, juice and water containers since 2014, she said.
A broader program "would make it easier for companies to sell non-alcoholic drinks in reusable containers, and keep billions of single-use bottles and cans out of our environment, landfills, and incinerators."
Dean Sloyka is the winemaker at Stratus Vineyards and says many wineries want to go on "the path of least resistance" and that's the usual way to recycling bottles.
"The thought of going through all these extra steps is, for a lot of companies like, well, why would I do that?" he said.
"With our sustainable mindset, we kind of have to start asking questions," he added. "Can we continue to go down this path where we're using these bottles once and then they're sometimes being recycled, but usually not being reused almost ever?"
Suzanne Janke is the estate director at Stratus Vineyards and says reusing bottles is another step in their commitment to environmental stewardship. The winery earned a LEED certification for their full facility in 2005 when it opened. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental design and is a global rating system that certifies green buildings.
"From that day forward, we've engaged in all kinds of different activities from the way we service our guests, the way we form the vineyard, the way we make our wines in terms of being as mindful of the environment as possible, obviously, because wine comes from the land," she said.
"We have a very obvious and inherent responsibility to make our work this way."
LISTEN | Kitchener company Circulr works with stores, businesses to recycle jars:
The Morning Edition - K-W6:35Kitchener company Circulr works with stores, businesses to recycle jars
A growing Kitchener business is hoping to get you to buy items in their reusable jars - then return them to the store where you bought them. Circulr co-founder Tyler De Sousa says the company was started in late 2020 and since then, has grown to stores throughout Waterloo region and in Toronto.
Sloyka says they have plans to grow from 50 cases to 200 cases this year. He said they haven't found an alternative to the wine bottle that allows wine to age the same way, "so we're really married to the wine bottle."
Knowing that, he wants to see the idea of reusing bottles take off across the province.
"The idea is to grow it more and more with Circulr until we can maybe find a standardized bottle and get a bunch of wineries going on," he said.
"Ideally our entire production and all of Ontario — we have a really small, tight-knit community … we're kind of perfectly set up to sort of band together and take initiative where there's bottles being used by the wineries."
De Souza says he expects their Kitchener facility "is going to see a lot of bottles in the next 12 months" as more wineries and vineyards express interest in the idea of reusing their bottles, too.
"There's a lot of interest in that movement," he said, adding Circulr has talked to two dozen wineries who seemed open to the idea of what the company is doing.
"We're kind of just getting our stuff together," he said, adding Stratus and Circulr are excited to "start the ball rolling on something really big."
Reporter/Editor
Kate has been covering issues in southern Ontario for more than 20 years. She is currently working for CBC Kitchener-Waterloo. Email: kate.bueckert@cbc.ca
Kitchener Centre voters have spoken and Green Party candidate Aislinn Clancy has been unofficially elected as the new Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in the riding.“I am so incredibly grateful to the Kitchener community for putting their trust in me. To every single person who supported our campaign – thank you,” Clancy said in a statement. “I’m honoured to have you behind me, and I’m ready to be your voice ...
Kitchener Centre voters have spoken and Green Party candidate Aislinn Clancy has been unofficially elected as the new Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in the riding.
“I am so incredibly grateful to the Kitchener community for putting their trust in me. To every single person who supported our campaign – thank you,” Clancy said in a statement. “I’m honoured to have you behind me, and I’m ready to be your voice at Queen’s Park.”
It was a historic night for the Greens as they now have two MPPs in the Ontario legislature, with Clancy joining party leader Mike Schreiner, who represents Guelph, in the legislature.
Clancy, who is a city councillor in Kitchener in Ward 10, collected 47.99 per cent of the vote while another city councillor, NDP candidate Debbie Chapman, finished with 26.73 per cent of the vote.
It was hotly-contested campaign between the Green Party and NDP with federal party leaders Elizabeth May and Jagmeet Singh both making appearances in Kitchener over the final week of the campaign to drum up support for their candidates.
The riding is also represented by the Green Party in Ottawa as Kitchener Centre voters elected Mike Morrice as their MP in 2021.
The PC Party named Rob Elliott, who resides north of Toronto in Keswick, as its candidate five days before they dropped the writ to open the campaign.
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He finished third in the election, ahead of Liberal candidate Kelly Steiss, in a sign that the Liberals still have much work to do in repairing their relationship with voters.
The Liberal Party had previously held the seat from 2003 until 2018 when former NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo was elected.
The seat, which is in the heart of Kitchener, had been vacant since Lindo resigned last summer.
In January, she announced she was resigning the seat less than a year after he had been re-elected to take a job at the University of Waterloo.
Voter turnout was low in the byelection as just 27.1 per cent of the 87,151 people who were eligible to cast a ballot actually voted.
Elections Ontario said that during the 2022 election, 46.2 per cent of registered voters in Kitchener Centre cast a vote.
International student cap could hit colleges, universities financially: ExpertsThe cap on international students is here and Ottawa hopes it will ease the pressure on the housing market. But student and faculty groups are warning something will have to give unless provinces step up with more financial support.More Videos0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcutsKeyboard ShortcutsEnabledDisabledPlay/PauseSPACEIncrease Volume↑Decre...
International student cap could hit colleges, universities financially: Experts
The cap on international students is here and Ottawa hopes it will ease the pressure on the housing market. But student and faculty groups are warning something will have to give unless provinces step up with more financial support.
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A Waterloo Regional councillor says he will be sending a letter to Conestoga College’s president after speaking to a student who was living in a house with 13 other people in a situation he described as “inhumane and down right unsafe.”
Kitchener councillor Michael Harris issued a series of tweets on Tuesday after he spoke with a student who was hauling a chair down the street.
He told Global News that he was collecting his mail from a community mailbox when he spotted the student.
“I saw down the street there was this guy carrying a chair down the street with a bunch of parcels or packages,” Harris said.
“He kind of stopped not too far from me and put the chair down to take a bit of a break and me being me, I went up to him and said, ”Hey, what’s going on here? What are you doing?’”
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That began a conversation between the two, in which the Kitchener councillor was told that the man was from India and was studying at the nearby main campus of Conestoga College
“I kind of knew roughly whereabouts he was heading, offered to give him a hand and I just asked him, I said, ‘What’s your situation there?’” Harris explained. “How many people are you actually living with? And he told me 13.”
Harris said he was floored by that news although at the same time he noted that there has been a large influx of international students into his area of the city.
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Conestoga College is the largest post-secondary institution in the country for international students and has expanded to add thousands of new students over the past few years.
“And it’s obvious the expansion and growth of international students across the college has led to this influx of students in the Doon area,” Harris said. “But I just felt that it … really sounded like an unsafe living situation.”
That led him to put out a series of posts on X on Tuesday night.
“I just thought it was time that I, I spoke up and I had to put that tweet out, just kind of telling people my experience that evening,” he explained.
He said the move to X brought on a massive response from the community.
In one case, he heard stories of people renting out driveways in Brampton so people could live in their cars.
Harris said that the recent mass influx of foreign students has begun to strain other areas for the region.
“Even from a regional perspective, the housing crisis that we’ve experienced in the last few years, a lack of housing, the cost of housing, but also the strain on regional services, transit, we know, is at record ridership levels,” he said.
“The strain from the food bank locally at this, past recent budget and I would say to you that stems back to the increase in the amount of international students at the at the college.
“I mean, you can’t … plug 10,000 students into a community and not feel the pressures of social services and even housing.”
It was a tough Tuesday for Conestoga College president John Tibbits, as some media outlets reported that he used some colourful language about another college president during an event.
Some have said Harris was piling on after the blowback began to Tibbits reportedly calling the other president a “whore” among other things but the Kitchener councillor said he was unaware of the other comments.
“I had no clue that was even happening, nor was I aware of any comments that he had made Tuesday afternoon,” Harris said. “I think I put my tweet out Tuesday evening.
The school’s board of directors released a statement on Thursday evening which said that they were reviewing Tibbits’ comments and that he had expressed his regret and apologized.
Harris, who is a graduate of and donor to Conestoga College, noted that the school needs to build more housing as it has fewer than 1,000 beds in Kitchener, Waterloo and Brantford.
“That residence that’s there was probably built early 2000s and there’s been nothing done since then,” he said. “You know, to accommodate more student residence units, especially on college-owned land, knowing that they are the benefactor of a significant amount of land.”
The school is currently working on new housing locations in Kitchener and Waterloo.
“I get that things take time to build. But when you know that you’ve got numbers coming through the door like they have, they need to have done better and they need to communicate frankly their plans to build more residential spaces if, in fact, they have them,” he said.
Global News reached out to Conestoga College to get a response to Harris’s posts but has yet to receive a response.
Conestoga has come under fire recently as the school has 30,000 international students with housing for less than 1,000.
Last month, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced that the feds were set to install a two-year national cap on the intake of students which would see 364,000 approved study permits, down 35 per cent from 2023.
“In order to maintain a sustainable level of temporary residence in Canada, as well to ensure that there is no further growth in the number of international students in Canada for 2024, we are setting a national application intake cap for a period of two years for 2024,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said when the move was announced.
That prompted Tibbits to issue a memo to staff earlier in February which called on the federal government to slow its move to curb the intake of international students into Canada.
“We agree that changes need to be made, especially in relation to private colleges, but the federal government’s decision should have been phased in over time and done in consultation,” the letter Tibbits issued on Friday said. “Instead, Canada’s reputation as a destination for post-secondary education is threatened.”
On Tuesday, the college touted the findings of a report which it had commissioned.
The report noted that Conestoga graduates add more than $6.2 billion annually to the province’s economy while more than 5,200 Conestoga graduates are local entrepreneurs.
It also noted that the college has spent $500 million over the last five years to expand campus locations and modernize buildings in the communities it serves.