The writing is on the wall for the Midland Area Reading Council (MARC).

Unless the province steps forward with additional funding, the literacy and training organization will have to cut staff and scale back its programs, said executive director Sue Bannon.

“We were told we’d be getting ... money to help sustain our program,” she said. “We haven’t had an increase in over 10 years.”

Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop is backing MARC’s request, firing off a letter to John Milloy, the minister of training, colleges and universities, demanding some of the $311 million recently flowed from the federal government to the province under the so-called Labour Market Agreement.

“We would have expected that money from this agreement would be available to assist those most vulnerable people who want to learn to read and write,” Dunlop stated.

Bannon said MARC was assured it would receive extra cash for the coming year, but has now been informed otherwise.

“Why won’t they hand this money down? It’s there. Give it out to the people that are supposed to have it,” said Bannon, who has been with MARC for 10 years. “It’s just breaking my heart that I may have to turn some students away.”

Patrick O’Gorman, a ministry spokesperson, told The Mirror MARC recently received $13,000 in additional funding, bringing it in line with the provincial average. The request for an extra boost is being reviewed, and O’Gorman said the goal is to help MARC avoid staff and program cuts: “That’s not something we’d like to see happen. The funding we’ve brought is to help people find jobs, not for people to lose them.”

MARC has two full-time employees and one part-timer. The organization has doubled its student intake in the last year, said Bannon, jumping to 400-500 learning hours from just 200-250 a year ago.