Barber says he cuts hair, but he’s not a hairstylist
Wants to be recognized as professional trade
As far as the provincial government is concerned, Sean Gibson’s profession doesn’t exist.
He is a barber — the president of the Ontario Barber Association, in fact.
But under the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, Gibson is technically a hairdresser. There’s no distinct category for barbering in the province — barbering and hairstyling are lumped together in one category.
“Barbering is illegal in Ontario,” said Gibson, who runs The Barber Centre on Main Street East.
It may seem like a technicality, but for those in the barbering industry, it’s become a major issue. In order to become part of the trade, barbers must attend a hairdressing course, which takes roughly 10 months and can cost upward of $10,000 per year. A major part of that course involves working with chemicals to dye, tint or perm hair — services barbers, who only offer cuts and shaves, don’t do.
Gibson has spent the past 12 years pushing the province to rectify this situation, to no avail.
“Things are in purgatory right now,” he said. “I have hundreds of hundreds of letters about this issue going back to 2005. It just doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to be cutting hair, and strictly cutting hair, you need to be certified as a barber.”
For Gibson, there’s another element: while barbers must learn how to use chemicals, they’re not explicitly taught how to cut black hair.
It’s an issue Gibson feels so strongly about that he took the province to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario — a battle he ultimately lost.
Gibson says that a major part of barbering is cutting black hair — a component that he argues has been glossed over in the current curriculum to make way for other skills.
“There’s a huge cultural piece
missing from the Ontario syllabus, because they didn’t want to take away from the hairdressing content,” he said.
The Ontario College of Trades, which regulates trades and reports to the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, said
the focus of training in the hairstylist program is on hair type, rather than ethnicity.
“The standards recognize different hair types (such as super curly) and the different physical attributes of hair (such as diameter and density),” said
spokesperson Ann-Marie Colacino.
Regardless of how it’s classified, Gibson says people are still leaving hairdressing school without proper understanding of how to cut black hair.
He says he’s often brought into trade schools to teach barbering skills for a day — and then, many of those students come to him for further instruction after graduating from their official program.
“People graduate, and they leave, and they still don’t know how to cut hair — because they were taught by hairstylists and hairdressers,” he said.
The grouping of barbering and hairdressing dates back to 1991, when it was introduced by the then-NDP government.
It was reinstated in 1998 by the Mike Harris government, and again when the Ontario College of Trades was formed in 2009.
The Liberal government opened a consultation back in 2013, which was supposed to
determine whether there was interest among the profession to create a distinct barbering trade.
However, it’s impossible to know the results of that consultation, or where the situation stands at the province today, as the Ministry did not respond to questions on the issue.
The Spectator requested information about why the ministry hasn’t created a category for barbers, and the results of the consultation process, but Ministry spokesperson Tanya Blazina provided only the following response: “The minister is currently getting briefed on all the files in her new ministry and looks forward to accessing the needs of all Ontarians.”
“This is the most frustrating part,” said Gibson. “They say, ‘It’s under review and we’re looking at it.’ They’re not looking at it.”