Loyalist Faculty OPSEU L420

In The News (November 3, 2025) - Liberals ask integrity commission to investigate minister over skills development fund.

By Isaac Callan & Colin D'Mello - Global News.

The Liberals have filed a request for Ontario’s integrity commissioner to determine whether the labour minister broke ethics rules in how money was handed out from the skills development fund.

For weeks, David Piccini has been under growing pressure for the controversial retraining scheme, which the auditor general determined was “not fair, transparent or accountable.”

The same investigation from the auditor general also found that the majority of applications selected were ranked low or medium by the Ministry of Labour and that more than 60 of the lower-scoring applicants were approved after hiring a lobbyist.

The Trillium reported that Piccini had attended the wedding of a lobbyist whose clients received skills development funding, as well as attending a Toronto Maple Leafs game with the director of a company that went on to receive funding.

Elsewhere, companies where directors donated to the Progressive Conservative party received funding from the skills development fund, as did a company implicated in a major palliative care supplies shortage.

Now, the Ontario Liberals have asked the integrity commissioner to determine whether Piccini “advanced private or political interests, showed preferential treatment to certain applicants, or breached sections of the Members’ Integrity Act relating to conflicts of interest, improper influence, or the use of insider information.”

The integrity commissioner has wide-ranging powers to investigate and interview a variety of people as part of her investigations and, if the office takes on an investigation, traditionally publishes detailed reports.

The auditor general and integrity commissioner investigations into the Greenbelt land swap turned a controversy into a scandal and led to two ministers’ resignations.

“We hope the Integrity Commissioner takes on this request and makes it clear that Doug Ford can no longer endorse or condone this kind of unethical behaviour in his government,” MPP Stephanie Smyth said.

“This is part of a long pattern of donation-driven decision-making that rewards friends and insiders over the people of Ontario.”

The Liberals’ complaint comes as a poll commissioned by the Canadian Union of Public Employees suggests the skills development controversy may be failing to punch through for the public.

An Abacus Data poll of 2,000 Canadians living in Ontario found 57 per cent had not heard about the skills development controversy, while another 24 per cent “may have heard something about it.”

Just 19 per cent of those polled were sure they’d heard of the controversy. Of those who had heard about the controversy, 51 per cent said Piccini should resign and 28 per cent said he should not.

Twenty-two per cent were undecided.

Ontario College Faculty College Faculty PT Ontario College Support Staff/Personnel de soutien des colleges - Full Time Ontario College Support Part-Time Staff

: An analysis from the Globe and Mail found a 60% jump in lobbyist influence over the Skills Development Fund since Piccini took office as the Minister of Labour 
 
Lower-scoring bids got millions. Higher-scoring ones were ignored. All because insiders had access.
 
PUT THE PRESSURE AND TELL DOUG FORD TO FIRE HIS MINISTER: OntarioNDP.ca/fire-piccini

In The News (November 12, 2025) - Ontario asks OPP to investigate recipient of Skills Development Fund after forensic audit.

Keel Digital Solutions defends its record, saying no 'red flags' raised during review.

By Muriel Draaisma · CBC News Toronto.

The Doug Ford government has asked the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate the findings of an audit of a company that received grants from the province's Skills Development Fund.

A routine audit of an "external service provider" raised concerns two years ago, the premier's office said in a statement on Wednesday.

That audit identified "irregularities," which in turn prompted a "comprehensive forensic audit" of the company, the premier's office said.

Keel Digital Solutions, a software company that provides a platform for mental health care, confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that it was the subject of the province's forensic audit and that it received money from the fund.

Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini administers the $2.5 billion fund, which has been mired in controversy for weeks.

In October, Ontario's auditor general said in a report that the selection process for grants from the fund was "not fair, transparent or accountable." The fund, which aims to spur economic growth, provides funding to organizations for projects that address challenges to hiring, training, or retaining workers.

According to the premier's office, the government received the results of the forensic audit last week and the audit recommended that the matter be referred to the OPP.

"Within 24 hours of receiving this report, the referral was made," the premier's office said.

"All payments associated with this provider are currently under review, and further actions will be taken based on that outcome."

OPP review will confirm 'our integrity,' company says

Keel Digital Solutions defended its record following the news from the premier's office.

Ahad Bandealy, spokesperson for Keel Digital Solutions, said the company "cooperated fully and transparently" with the province's forensic audit.

"We have serious concerns about the process, which showed persistent misunderstandings of corporate vs. not-for-profit structures and misinterpretation of tax rules (e.g., input tax credits and relevant federal programs)," Bandealy continued.

"Throughout the review, we were repeatedly told no irregularities or 'red flags' had been identified that would preclude continuing the government’s partnership with Keel."

Keel Digital Solutions said the government should have talked to the company before releasing its statement on Wednesday.

"This has required us to respond to incomplete and potentially misleading information through media channels rather than directly with the government," Bandealy said.

Bandealy said Keel Digital Solutions has not been informed of any OPP investigation.

"If one is initiated, we will cooperate fully and professionally. We are confident an objective review will confirm our integrity and the quality of our compliance practices."

Keel Digital Solutions said its platform has provided more than 200,000 mental health sessions for post-secondary students across Ontario since it was first set up.

Opposition leaders call on Ford to fire minister

Opposition leaders, however, say this latest development involving the fund shows that government accountability is lacking. They called on Ford to fire Piccini for his handling of the fund, something they have been calling since the auditor general's report was released.

Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said Piccini should explain what has happened here and this latest development raises many questions.

"If he was working for me, he wouldn't be doing what he's doing right now. He wouldn't be a minister any longer," Fraser said on Wednesday. "This thing is a rotten mess and we need to get to the bottom of it."

Fraser said there should be a forensic audit of the fund itself.

'Trust has been broken,' opposition leader says
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, in an open letter to Ford, said: “Ontario can and should manage this fund, as other provinces do, with transparency and accountability, and ensure that every dollar goes to creating good opportunities for workers.”

Stiles added: "I am deeply concerned by the lack of due diligence conducted by this Premier and this government before handing over millions of taxpayers dollars to this company."

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner also called for Piccini's resignation, saying it's another example of the Skills Development Fund being a slush fund for the government. He said the government needs to fix the fund and make it fair, transparent and accountable.

"Mr. Puccini needs to step down or if he's not going to resign, then Doug Ford needs to remove him and find a new minister. Trust has been broken."

Ontario College Faculty College Faculty PT Ontario College Support Staff/Personnel de soutien des colleges - Full Time Ontario College Support Part-Time Staff

In The News (November 1, 2025) - Most early Skills Development Fund recipients that missed a key training or employment target got grants again.

Overall, most first-round SDF recipients told the Labour Ministry they’d either trained more people or had more trainees get jobs after than they planned.

By Charlie Pinkerton, The Trillium.

Dozens of the earliest recipients of the Skills Development Fund received follow-up grants from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, despite their initial taxpayer-funded program falling well short of what they agreed to.

When the Ford government launched the Skills Development Fund (SDF) in 2021, it provided about $177 million to labour groups, not-for-profits, companies and municipalities to train or upskill workers, or help keep them employed. Before receiving a slice of the funding, the almost 150 recipients signed deals with the government that included various “standard performance commitments,” which they were supposed to collect data on and later share with the Ministry of Labour for it to use to evaluate the success of programs it gave taxpayer funds to.

Most recipients — 133 of 146 — of first-round SDF grants followed through with sharing this information with the ministry, according to data obtained by The Trillium.

Of the groups that provided data about their programs to the ministry, 55 reported that they’d failed to reach 50 per cent of one of three main “performance commitments” that they’d agreed to — which includes their targeted participants, participants who completed their program, and participants who became employed within 60 days of finishing it. The labour minister’s office, under the leadership of Monte McNaughton or David Piccini, later decided to give 35 of these groups more funding from later rounds of the Skills Development Fund.

Five of the 13 recipients that didn’t provide the government with data about their program after its completion also later received more SDF funding.

In response to questions about a number of the recipients that fell short of their training or employment targets, a spokesperson for Piccini wrote, “All SDF applications are reviewed and evaluated by ministry officials using a standardized public evaluation framework.”

“We continue to strengthen evaluation methods and introduced new criteria to ensure recipients can deliver high-quality training,” added Michel Figueredo, director of communications to Piccini. “This includes reviewing the selection process after each round to determine which objectives need to be updated to reflect current economic needs and what measures are required to encourage participation from priority sectors and target demographics.”

The data collected by the Ministry of Labour showing how recipients of the first round of the Skills Development Fund met — or failed to meet — their “standard performance commitments” was obtained using the freedom-of-information system. The Trillium has made it available to the public here.

Since 2021, the Skills Development Fund has become one of Premier Doug Ford and his party’s favourite initiatives. The Progressive Conservative government has awarded over $1.3 billion of taxpayer funds in 1,000-plus grants to hundreds of recipients over the last five years.

The Labour Ministry funding program, however, has become the subject of intense controversy at Queen’s Park. In a series of articles since early September, The Trillium has publicized numerous revelations about connections that many SDF recipients share with the PCs, including with the premier and both labour ministers who’ve been in charge of the program.

Auditor general Shelley Spence also released a report at the beginning of this month, which has helped fuel the controversy. The auditor revealed that under both labour ministers who’ve overseen the SDF, their office selected its recipients. In hundreds of cases, it passed over applicants that non-partisan public servants gave “high” scores to, in favour of lower-ranked proposals. In many cases, Spence found, the labour minister’s office provided either no explanation for why it gave funds to certain applicants, or “rationales (that) did not always address evaluation concerns or seem accurate.”

The minister’s office’s selection of who to provide Skills Development Fund grants to has, overall, been “not fair, transparent or accountable,” Spence concluded.

When McNaughton left Ford’s cabinet and elected politics altogether a couple of years ago, the premier replaced him with Piccini, who has overseen — and, he’s said, personally helped choose — the recipients of the last two rounds of the SDF. Through these rounds, over 400 training grants totalling almost $600 million were given out to groups by the Labour Ministry.

McNaughton was in charge of the Skills Development Fund for its first three rounds. With him in charge, his office awarded just under 600 grants totalling about $736 million in total.

The Ministry of Labour began accepting applications for the first round of the Skills Development Fund about a year into the pandemic and described it then as being “specifically designed to address the (economic) challenges brought on by COVID-19.”

In her office’s report, the province’s auditor highlighted three main key performance indicators (KPIs) that the Labour Ministry has used to evaluate SDF recipients’ programs, which include how many participants they had, how many participants completed the project, and how many became employed 60 days after completion — compared to the amounts they committed to.

As the auditor also reported, her office found that 76 per cent of first-round SDF recipients met or surpassed their targeted number of participants, 90 per cent achieved their participant-completion target, and 58 per cent exceeded their participant-employment target.

On the day that her office released its findings about the Skills Development Fund, Spence told reporters that it had also learned that although the Ministry of Labour did “spot checks” of the data that recipients provided it about their programs, it hadn’t all been independently verified.

The Trillium attempted to reach multiple groups that fell short in their SDF round one-funded programs of their key targets, but didn’t hear back from any before this story was published.

Parties battle over SDF’s depiction

Since MPPs returned to the legislature a couple of weeks ago for the fall sitting, the Skills Development Fund controversy has been the dominant topic of discussion. Every day in question period, opposition MPPs from the NDP and Liberals have taken Piccini to task over his and his predecessor’s funding decisions — while maintaining, as well, that they support the program’s concept.

Piccini has been unrelenting about his faith in the initiative and continuing it without needing to make significant changes to how funding decisions are made, while respecting the auditor general’s advice.

The two sides — the Ford government and the parties in opposition — have essentially been having different conversations.

NDP and Liberal MPPs have been critical of the Skills Development Fund’s use, characterizing it as the latest way Ford’s PCs have used the powers of the government to reward their friends and political allies.

Day after day, NDP and official Opposition Leader Marit Stiles has raised Piccini’s rinkside Leafs game outing with a director of a company his office later awarded SDF funds to, and whose lobbyist the labour minister recently attended the Parisian wedding of, both of which were first reported by The Trillium.

MPP John Fraser, the Ontario Liberals’ parliamentary leader, repeatedly asked Piccini at a legislative committee meeting on Wednesday to say he’s “never going to do this again,” referring to the same pair of events.

Piccini has said little regarding the Leafs game and wedding, except for saying he’s covered his costs for both. Asked multiple times whether he’s set up a formal ethics screen, as cabinet ministers can do in co-operation with the integrity commissioner’s office, with the company director or lobbyist from either of those events, Piccini wouldn’t say.

The labour minister has tended to dodge many other questions about the other SDF recipients that The Trillium and other media outlets have revealed share connections with him and others in the PC government. Oftentimes, he’s pivoted to talking about the funding program’s successive stories. Among those is that of Baseer Ahmed, who participated in home-building training that not-for-profit group Aspire for Higher provided, thanks to $4.5 million that Piccini’s office awarded it.

During a visit to the legislature and to meet with Piccini this week, Ahmed told The Trillium, “If it was not for the opportunity that Aspire for Higher created for me, I would not have been able to eventually secure a full-time job as a carpenter.”

“In all honesty, without Aspire for Higher, I very much possibly may have been out on the street,” Ahmed added.

Ontario College Faculty College Faculty PT Ontario College Support Staff/Personnel de soutien des colleges - Full Time Ontario College Support Part-Time Staff

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16cm2xC8ee/?mibextid=wwXIfr

What's scarier than corporate greed? Your tax dollars funding it. 🎃 Don't let public education become a ghost story. Learn more and take action at SaveTheirFutures.ca

In The News (October 29, 2025) - Critics claim skills development fund is ‘circular economy’ of tax dollars, donations.

By Colin D'Mello & Isaac Callan, Global News.

In the fall of 2023, as Premier Doug Ford looked to promote Ontario-based manufacturing, he toured a GTA industrial bakery that produces popular household brands such as Ace baguettes and Stonefire flatbreads.

“They call themselves the technology company that bakes. I call them the NASA of food production,” the premier declared in a video posted on his YouTube page.

Shortly after, the company enlisted the help of Rubicon Strategies, whose owner, Kory Teneycke, has also served as the election campaign manager for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, looking to secure provincial funding.

“Assist FGF Brands Inc. with application to the Ontario Skills Development Fund program to upskill and train FGF’s diverse workforce,” the registration in October 2023 stated.

According to provincial records, while the company was unsuccessful during the initial three rounds of funding, its lobbying efforts eventually paid off.

In September 2025, FGF Brands was listed as one of dozens of companies that received funding from the Skills Development Fund’s training stream, which the company said would be used for training and retraining a high-performance organization.

While government records show the company received $1.064 million from Ontario taxpayers, Rubicon Strategies indicated the company received $1.25 million from the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development in the previous fiscal year, which ended on March 31.

The provincial funding, however, also appears to coincide with a sudden surge in donations from key members connected to FGF Brands — all to the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

Elections Ontario records suggest the owners of FGF Brands — founder Sam Ajmera and his sons, Tejus and Ojus Ajmera — along with other members of the family, donated twice in 2025 for a total of $32,000.

The first donation, from five members of the Ajmera family, came during the snap winter election campaign: $3,040 per individual, for a total of $15,200.

The second donation, which came almost immediately after, was listed as the “2025 annual period”: $3,400 per individual for a total of $17,000.

Pattern appears to repeat itself

In 2022, Ontario Shipyards, formerly known as the Heddle Marine Services, hired Rubicon Strategies to “educate the government on the economic development benefits that can be gained by supporting the shipbuilding industry.”

According to the lobbying records, the company targeted the Premier’s Office and a number of ministries, including finance, economic development and labour.

Shortly after, the company was awarded millions of dollars from Ontario taxpayers from multiple government ministries, totalling $25.8 million — roughly $13.7 million of which came from the government’s skills development fund.

In July 2023, with then-labour minister Monte McNaughton in tow, Premier Doug Ford announced the company would receive $3.7 million in SDF funding to “train more people for highly skilled jobs in the shipbuilding industry.”

Elections Ontario records show company executives made multiple donations to the Ontario PC Party, along with successive ministers of labour.

In 2021, when the Ford government first opened the fund, names matching those of the company’s chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer and director of business development donated a total of $8,594 to the Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC riding association.

That was the riding represented by McNaughton, who was the labour minister at the time.

In 2024, the same year the company received $10 million in funding from the SDF, the same executives donated $6,640 to the Northumberland-Peterborough South PC riding association. Current Labour Minister David Piccini represents that riding.

Between 2021 and 2024, company executives appear to have also donated another $18,870 to the PC Party.

Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said the process appears to be a “scheme.”

“People are donating lots of money and then they’re getting millions of dollars from a government,” Fraser said. “It’s just out there for everybody to see.”

Stephanie Smyth, another Liberal MPP, said she felt the way skills development funding dollars had been handed out was shocking.

“The fact that this government is operating a circular economy of donations for taxpayer dollars – our dollars – that are then donated back again to the government is frankly gobsmacking,” she said.

At Queen’s Park, as Minister Piccini was grilled by the opposition during question period, NDP Leader Marit Stiles raised another example she said followed the same trend as other Skills Development Fund controversies.

The Ontario Harness Horse Association, which advocates on behalf of racehorse owners and trainers, received more than $6 million in funding over several rounds of the SDF.

Donation records, kept by Elections Ontario, show the president of the organization has made a flurry of donations between 2022 and 2025 to the PC party, elected PC MPPs and candidates totalling $15,548.

Stiles said those donations were just a fraction of the total.

“The association’s president, their general manager, their executive director have all donated to the Conservative Party,” Stiles said.

“Their president and his family donated about $43,000 to the Conservatives. Wow.”

James Whelan, president of the OHHA, confirmed to Global News his organization was granted more than $6 million in skills development funding, although it did not spend the full sum, and said donations made by himself and others were done so in a “personal” capacity.

“The contributions are personal contributions,” he wrote in an email. “And those Individuals have a history of contributions and supporting all four provincial parties.”

Whelan said the NDP should “cease and desist trying to make political hay on the backs of grassroots, tax paying and law abiding rural Ontarians.”

He added the program funded through the skills development fund was one the OHHA was “very proud and passionate (about) and fills a huge void that is desperately needed in the agricultural industry.”

The questions about the broader skills development fund, and who donated to the Progressive Conservative Party, come as the Ford government looks to increase yearly individual donation limits to $5,000 — which, Stiles argued, shows the premier is looking to “dig in” despite the scandal.

“If you can pay to play, then you got a place at the table, right? What this government has basically done with these changes is they’re slapping up a big for-sale sign on democracy in the province of Ontario,” Stiles said.

Ontario College Faculty College Faculty PT Ontario College Support Staff/Personnel de soutien des colleges - Full Time Ontario College Support Part-Time Staff

In The News (October 28, 2025) - Rinkside seats Piccini spotted in belonged to family of director of company that got millions from Skills Development Fund.

By Jon Woodward, CTV News Toronto.

The rinkside Maple Leafs seats David Piccini was photographed in belong to the family of the man sitting next to him, a director of a company that would go on to get millions in Skills Development Fund grants when Piccini became Ontario’s labour minister, CTV News has learned.

That complicates Piccini’s claims that he pays for his own tickets, given that any money repaid could have gone back to the family of Peter Zakarow, and the two of them may have had to set their own price for tickets that routinely go for more than $1,000 each, one observer said.

“I would think the Integrity Commissioner would reach out and say, ‘What’s going on here?’” said York University’s Ian Stedman, an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.

“When you’re not in public office, you can go to the game with your buddies all the time and just pay them back by buying beer and wings. But when you’re a public official, you actually have to be very scrupulous about making sure there’s a record that you paid them back.”

Piccini was photographed just after the Leafs scored on January 17, 2023, when he was Ontario’s environment minister.

His office implied in a statement that he paid for the tickets himself, saying earlier in October that he is a “lifelong sports fan who purchases his own tickets for games.”

CTV News has learned via two sources that those specific tickets are season tickets that have been in the Zakarow family’s hands for decades.

Which means if Piccini paid for them, he would likely not have paid the Maple Leafs box office or a resale website, but may have paid the Zakarow family back.

CTV News followed up with Piccini’s office, asking him if he paid that family back, and if so, how much.

They told us, “Minister Piccini has already publicly responded to these questions.”

However, in an earlier exchange with CTV News on October 16, Piccini didn’t say who he paid, instead choosing to talk about the fund itself.

“Our stats are showing that we have more women in the trades today than at any point in modern history. We’re getting indigenous youth registered into the trades and that’s because the Skills Development Fund is changing lives,” he said at the time.

The Skills Development Fund is a major policy of the Ford government, which has said the $2.5 billion in grants are crucial tools to retrain workers and stimulate the economy.

However, it has come under fire in recent weeks as Ontario’s opposition target the hundreds of millions of dollars that have gone through agencies that endorsed the Ford government in a recent election, or that went through a lobbying firm owned by one of the Ford’s campaign managers.

At least one grant went to Keel Digital Solutions, a Toronto company that says it trains peer support workers for police officers.

That company got at least $2.7 million from the Skills Development Fund the year following that hockey game. Zakarow is one listed director.

The lobbyist that represented Keel Digital Solutions was Michael Rudderham. He’s been the subject of a complaint by the NDP that he put Piccini in a conflict of interest by inviting him to his wedding at a luxury hotel in France.

CTV News visited Keel’s offices on Monday, and while one staffer took a message no one returned it.

Messages to Zakarow have not been returned either.

NDP calls for Piccini’s resignation

During Question Period in the Ontario Legislature on Monday, opposition parties reiterated their calls for Piccini to resign, with NDP Leader Marit Stiles saying the full rankings given by the non-partisan staff for each grant should be released.

Those are the rankings that the province’s Auditor-General found were overruled more than half the time by political staff in grants worth $742 million, in a process that was “not fair, transparent or accountable.”

“Will this minister keep treating tax dollars like a friends and family fund?” Stiles asked.

“Speaker, full of inaccuracies,” Piccini said in response.

“We don’t rank applications, we review and assess them against government priorities, like our housing supply action plan, like our plan to mine critical minerals in Northern Ontario to make sure we’re supporting worthwhile career opportunities in the North.”

He pointed to several projects granted Skills Development Funding that were connected to former NDP candidates.

It’s safest to repay the market price of any tickets, said Stedman, who used to work in the office of Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner. Anything less could mean that the savings could amount to a gift that has to be declared, he said.

“The commissioner’s office in its best efforts has looked at that and said, what’s fair market value? What’s fair market value at the time that you exchanged? And then you can also be reasonable and say, you know, it’s not always the case that we pay fair market value. We do have friends and our friends do do nice things,” Stedman said.

“The question then for the commissioner will be, is that a gift and should it be reported? And that’s tricky. There, it’s a case by case basis.”

Integrity Commissioner records say Piccini didn’t declare any gifts in 2023, 2024, or 2025.

In a statement to CTV News, the Integrity Commissioner said it doesn’t comment on whether an MPP has made a request for advice.

Ontario College Faculty College Faculty PT Ontario College Support Staff/Personnel de soutien des colleges - Full Time Ontario College Support Part-Time Staff