{"id":221273,"date":"2025-10-18T03:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221273\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T03:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T03:13:07","slug":"unions-raising-concerns-about-ontarios-skills-development-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221273\/","title":{"rendered":"Unions raising concerns about Ontario’s Skills Development Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are calls for Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini to resign over allegations surrounding upwards of $100 million in grants. Jon Woodward reports. <\/p>\n

The minister in charge of Ontario\u2019s Skills Development Fund is facing calls for his resignation from a union leader in the wake of allegations that over $100 million for jobs retraining have been funneled to projects helmed by political allies.<\/p>\n

Fred Hahn of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said he was surprised at how Minister David Piccini responded to questions from CTV News<\/a> when a crew caught up with him outside a Brampton event Thursday in a seven-minute exchange.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is deeply troubling that a minister of government responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars cannot and will not answer direct questions from anyone about how those decisions were made,\u201d Hahn said.<\/p>\n

Also troubling, Hahn said, is the report from the province\u2019s auditor general<\/a> that political staff overrode the recommendations of non-partisan staff to fund $750 million in projects that were low-scoring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of cloud is deeply troubling. It understandably impacts public trust, and the minister is directly responsible for that. And so, to clear the air, he\u2019s got to step aside,\u201d Hahn said.<\/p>\n

The office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford gave no indication they felt Piccini should go.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur office has confidence in Minister Piccini to continue to serve as Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development,\u201d said Hannah Jensen, the premier\u2019s deputy director of media relations, in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Skills Development Fund is on track to give out some $2.5 billion in grants, aimed at retraining workers to better find jobs amidst economic headwinds like the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n

But reporting from CTV News has tracked upwards of $100 million<\/a> that has gone to groups that endorsed Premier Doug Ford in his most recent election campaign, some $80 million that went through one lobbyist who also has managed Ford\u2019s election campaigns, as well as several cases that went to companies connected to PC party donors.<\/p>\n

Most agencies claimed there was no quid pro quo with their projects, and they won the grant on merit. One private sector union, LiUNA, said allegations a grant was \u201ctransactional\u201d was \u201cnothing more than a smear campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s NDP have complained to the province\u2019s integrity commissioner about Piccini\u2019s attendance at a wedding in Paris of a lobbyist working for one company that got some $7.5 million in grants.<\/p>\n

Piccini was also photographed in rinkside seats with one of that company\u2019s directors while he was environment minister.<\/p>\n

Reached Friday, Ontario Liberal MPP Adil Shamji didn\u2019t go as far as calling for the minister\u2019s resignation but said that more has to be done to shed light on where grant money went and why.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a government that does not conduct itself in a fair, transparent and accountable manner,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd at the end of the day, we need to get to the very bottom of who is responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a list of grant recipients has been made public, the grant total has not, nor has the rating of each application by non-partisan staff.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Piccini responded to a CTV News question about secrecy in the grant process by saying, \u201cthe Skills Development Fund is changing lives\u2026 I\u2019ve been at almost every recipient to see the life-changing training that goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piccini also denied that there was an effort to politically turn certain unions by using the fund\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit ironic that in the past people criticized the PCs about not having the support of labour. And now that we do, (they\u2019re) trying to find any reason,\u201d he said Thursday.<\/p>\n

The dispute over the Skills Development Fund has exposed a rift in the labour movement, with public sector unions like OPSEU criticizing the fund in the wake of a collapse in funding for public colleges.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, LiUNA broke with the Ontario Federation of Labour over OPSEU\u2019s criticism of the fund. Records show LiUNA got at least $27 million.<\/p>\n

CUPE was not a recipient of a grant, Hahn said, and the published list doesn\u2019t include their union.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t pit each other against each other. This is exactly what the actions of this government are doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are calls for Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini to resign over allegations surrounding upwards of $100 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-221273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}