Torstar to close its Vaughan plant and outsource printing to Transcontinental

Torstar Corporation has reached an agreement with Transcontinental Printing to take over printing of Canada’s largest daily newspaper, the Toronto Star. The five-year deal is expected to begin in July of this year, though an extension is possible depending on the actual progress of the deal and other logistics. The move to close its printing plant in Vaughan, Ontario (just north of Toronto, which opened in 1992) will affect about 220 full-time employees and 65 part-time staffers. The Star has already begun discussions with employee unions on a transition plan. The newspaper is also cutting 13 positions from its One Yonge Street newsroom and 15 from its circulation department there, while offering voluntary buyouts to remaining newsroom staff. Despite all this, the newspaper’s existing printing contract will still run until at least 2021. Delivery of the printed Toronto Star daily newspaper will also continue under its current arrangements.

“That’s the minimum lifespan, but we don’t even think of it that way. It’s a commitment to spending five years figuring out what the next iteration of the Toronto Star in print will be,” insisted Publisher John Cruickshank. The Star will gradually shift to Transcontinental’s nearby plant, also located in Vaughan, where more modern presses and fewer employees also print The Globe and Mail. The Star is also considering sale of the 675,000-sq.-ft. Vaughan printing facility that sits on 17.4 hectares of land. Once Transcontinental has fully taken over printing operations, the operating savings are expected to be $10 million annually. Transcontinental also prints other Canadian daily newspapers as well as the San Francisco Chronicle.

“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,” Cruickshank said. He said in a recent interview that the Vaughan plant was conceived more than 25 years ago. “It’s of a generation of printing plants that are great at printing very high volumes, but not so efficient at lower volumes. We’re moving to a next-generation printing facility that will give us more colour, sharper colour and better printing.”
The Star’s decision comes just as it’s investing tens of millions of dollars in a new online tablet edition, Star Touch. For more information and background on that crucial move, which we reported on in 2015, please visit https://graphicartsmag.com/news/2015/09/toronto-star-launches-star-touch-20-million-tablet-edition/.