Torstar to sell Vaughan printing plant, close to 300 jobs affected

The Toronto Star printing plant in Vaughan is closing as parent company Torstar Corporation looks to cut costs and outsource its printing due to falling revenues.

In a release on Friday, Torstar said its plan to sell its Toronto-area printing plant and outsource the work to Transcontinental, Canada’s largest commercial printing company.

The closure will affect 220 full-time and 65 part-time people employed at the plant.

The switch to Transcontinental is expected to begin in July and produce about $10 million of annual savings for Torstar, one of Canada’s biggest newspaper companies.

The agreement is for five years with the possibility to extend further.

“This move will allow us to focus our efforts increasingly on creating great content and engaging audiences across many platforms while at the same time reducing costs and improving the production quality of the newspaper,” John Cruickshank, publisher of the Toronto Star and president of Star Media Group, said in a release.

“This is an important step for the Toronto Star, but unfortunately it also means we will be saying goodbye to our long-time Vaughan printing plant employees.”

Torstar’s flagship Toronto Star newspaper has begun negotiating with its unions towards a transition.

The newspaper’s parent company said it expects to record about $22 million in restructuring charges this year.

It is also looking for a buyer for its printing plant and land in Vaughan.

When the plant opened in 1992, it was the most technologically advanced in the world and one of the largest of its kind in North America.

Transcontinental is Canada’s largest printer and the owner of community newspapers in Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces.

It also prints other Canadian daily newspapers, including the Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette and the Vancouver Sun, as well as the San Francisco Chronicle in the United States under contract.