Executive pay jumped for many recipients of an Ontario job training grant, according to salary disclosure viewed by CTV News, including at one numbered company that partnered with an agency that later started an “adult entertainment club.”
Most organizations contacted by CTV News said they used other revenue rather than the $2.5 billion Skills Development Fund (SDF) to pay for their executive salaries and that the government money went to train workers.
But critics worry that suddenly being flush with government cash, millions of dollars in some cases, may have created an environment where salary increases become easier to do.
“The average Ontarian isn’t seeing pay bumps like these,” said Noah Jarvis of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who called the program “corporate welfare.”
“The government needs to conduct a full investigation into whether or not the Skills Development Fund money was going towards pay bumps for executives and for managers.”
The Skills Development Fund was conceived of as a way to encourage organizations to retrain workers in the province. But it has come under fire for weeks from critics and opposition politicians as a “slush fund” that rewarded political allies of the Doug Ford government.
In Question Period on Wednesday, NDP leader Marit Stiles took aim at “the donors and the lobbyists that are connected to this government. It is the strip clubs and the numbered companies. It is the endless grift of an anti-democratic and yes, corrupt government.”
Using phrases like “corrupt” is unparliamentary language, and Speaker Donna Skelly asked her to withdraw. Stiles refused, and was escorted out of the chamber to the cheers of her caucus.
The salary data viewed by CTV News is for a limited number of recipients: only public and non-profit recipients who received more than $1 million a year, or more than $120,000 if the SDF grants make up more than 10 per cent of their revenue. Private companies did not disclose this information.
CTV News found at least a dozen examples of salaries that went up as grant money came in.
One company, 12490625 Canada Institute, got about $9.8 million over four years. In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, the agency is listed as receiving about $250,000 in grants, and its listed Executive Director, Eugenia Andonov, declared a salary of $100,315.
In 2024, when the annual grant had risen to just under $3.5 million, Andonov’s declared salary rose to just under $125,000—a two-year rise of about 24 per cent.
Andonov didn’t respond to e-mails for this story, and no one answered when CTV News knocked at the listed address of her company, a semi-detached home in Aurora, Ont., north of Toronto.
The company had previously acknowledged working with the Toronto Event Centre to train marginalized women at the Horticultural Centre at Toronto’s Exhibition Grounds. It denied that it was involved with the FYE Ultraclub that operated there.
City records showed the man who runs both FYE Ultraclub and the Toronto Event Centre, Zlatko Starkvoksi, licensed the venue in February as an “adult entertainment club.”
Another organization, advocacy group Ontario Good Roads Association received a $1.1 million grant in 2022-2023, when its Executive Director Scott Butler was paid about $254,000. The next year, the grant rose to $1.7 million, and Butler’s pay rose to about $287,000.
“The change in my compensation was the result of a re-negotiated contract that came into effect part way in 2022. The subsequent increases are attributable to progression through the salary band and board-approved cost of living adjustments,” wrote Butler in an email.
“None of the salary increases were a result of the Skills Development Fund funding.”
At Communitech, a Waterloo-based tech incubator, President and CEO Christopher Albinson was listed as getting paid $177,000, the year it’s listed as getting about $265,000 from the Skills Development Fund to launch a talent-matching platform to connect tech employers with job-seekers. The next year, his salary is listed as $294,750.
Between 2021 and 2025 Communitech also received about $27 million in grants from the Ministry of Economic Development. In that time, Albinson’s salary rose to $471,000, the documents say.
“The former CEO’s salary increase reflects a variable compensation package, funded solely through private revenue. The SDF grants was not used to fund any executive compensation or salary increases,” said Communitech’s director of communications, Rosie Del Campo, adding that his 2021 salary was only a partial year.
The Ontario Ministry of Labour didn’t respond to questions about salary increases for SDF recipients first e-mailed on Nov. 10. Its application guide lists under the “ineligible expenses” category “salaries of executives or senior management who do not directly contribute to project delivery.”
Premier Ford has said he stands by Piccini. The province forwarded to the OPP a forensic audit of Keel Digital Solutions, one recipient of Skills Development Fund money and other contracts from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities.
Both the NDP and the Liberal party have filed integrity commissioner complaints alleging their connections with Labour Minister David Piccini may have put him in a conflict of interest.
Keel Digital Solutions itself has demanded that audit be made public to avoid being a “scapegoat” for any problems with the fund.