'People seemed to think the vote came out of nowhere,' said a Sault College employee Sault College’s faculty and support staff unions held a non-binding vote last night at Quattro Hotel to determine if they have confidence in president David Orazietti. SooToday has learned that 54.84 per cent of participants signalled they do have confidence in Orazietti, who became the college’s sixth president in 2023. One hundred and two people voted in favour of Orazietti's performance, while 84 people (45.16 per cent) said they do not have confidence in him, a difference of 18 votes. “People seemed to think the vote came out of nowhere,” said a Sault College employee who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of retribution. The vote came a day after Orazietti hosted two town hall meetings to discuss the challenges faced by the school. Sault College is facing a dramatic reduction in its allocation of international student permits. Since the federal government announced those changes, the college has suspended 16 programs. In 2023, Sault College had 3,530 international student permits. In 2024, that number has dropped to 1,293 – a 63 per cent reduction. Last week SooToday learned about four people who no longer worked at the college due to cutbacks that were made as a result of financial pressure. The Sault College employee, who called the vote "shocking," said the meeting left many people with “more questions than answers.” “We still don’t know about layoffs," the employee said. "There was a lot of arguing at the meeting. Members were thrown off by the fact they were going to a vote. They thought it came out of nowhere. Most people were there to find out about the future of our jobs.” The vote was held online after last night's meeting. Members had from 7 p.m. yesterday until noon today to participate. The Sault College employee said there was a discussion at the meeting about the school currently having no one in human resources and no one serving as the director of information technology. “In the event of a cyber attack, that’s definitely not good,” the employee said. The employee also said OPSEU Local 612 for support staff and OPSEU Local 613 for faculty have received many grievances in the past year, but it’s difficult to get anything resolved when no one works in human resources. “The reason why this vote came up is because there have been more complaints,” said the employee, who still doesn't know if they will lose their job. SooToday has reached out to OPSEU and Orazietti for comment, but did not receive responses.