Originally reported by CBC News Toronto in 2018. The summary below is ours.
CBC Toronto sat down with Dwight Murray, then 30 and president of the Toronto Fade Masters Academy, about a problem he had been raising for years: Ontario had no dedicated training pathway for barbers.
Barbering was folded into the hairstyling trade in Ontario in 1998. Dwight argued that hairstyling programs treat barbering as a small add-on, focused more on chemical services like perms and straightening than on the skills that define the craft: fades, beard work and straight-razor shaving.
The story followed an inspection of the academy by the Ontario College of Trades. Rather than cracking down on a growing industry, Dwight called on the province to modernise its rules so barbers could be trained, and recognised, for the work they actually do.
At the time, the academy had trained more than 700 students, and Miami Fades operated six locations across the Greater Toronto Area. The same conviction still drives our push for national barbering standards today.