Cho ultimately resigned from cabinet<\/a> and Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered the others to pay the money back.<\/p>\nCho\u2019s constituency association records show that they spent about $100,000 on food and hotel stays from Ontario to Alberta, including $12,700 on hotel expenses at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa and the Rimrock Resort in Banff.<\/p>\n
A constituency association is an organization formed in a riding to support a political party or a candidate. They typically have a governance structure that includes a board which oversees the expenditures and are required to file annual disclosures with Elections Ontario.<\/p>\n
Those records, which were accessed by CTV News, show the revenues for the PC Northumberland-Peterborough constituency association are a mix of donations, and Ontario\u2019s taxpayer-funded per-vote subsidy, which in 2024 was $9,940 for the PC party in that riding.<\/p>\n
The records show that contributions to the riding association swelled from $269,155 in 2023 to $449,471 in 2024. Piccini became Labour Minister in the fall of 2023.<\/p>\n
Expenses at restaurants and hotels rose from about $12,000 in 2023 to almost $50,000 in 2024. Among them, $1,800 at the Four Seasons, almost $2,000 at Toronto\u2019s Albany Club, and $237 at Antonio Park, which was a luxury restaurant on the 51st floor of the Manulife Centre.<\/p>\n
By 2025, the expenses at restaurants and hotels had dropped to about $11,500, though that year, the association spent $500 on the Four Seasons and $2,520 at Bookalimousine, which describes itself as a \u201cToronto Airport Limo Service,\u201d the records say.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the records show that constituency association spent $388,600. The biggest expense, at $140,000, were tickets to the leadership dinner, which was listed at $1,000 a ticket and headlined Ford and Cho.<\/p>\n
Expenses were approved: riding association<\/p>\n
Martin Bugden, the association\u2019s CFO, said that the constituency association board approved the expenses and the financials were audited.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny kind of expense, the board would pass a motion and if it\u2019s not passed, the money doesn\u2019t get spent,\u201d he said, adding the board would have closely scrutinized anything over $1,000.<\/p>\n
Bugden said that all expenses on the records are for a year\u2019s total, and so what may appear to be a large expense could have been several smaller bills.<\/p>\n
One large line item, which was $8,000 at the Beamish House Pub in Port Hope, was likely for hosting something like 10 board meetings over the course of a year, he said.<\/p>\n
Piccini facing Integrity Commissioner probe <\/p>\n
Over at the legislature, Piccini is facing an Integrity Commissioner investigation over whether he broke any rules in decisions about who got grant money out of the $2.5 billion Skills Development Fund.<\/p>\n
One aspect of the complaints that sparked the investigation were that he attended the Parisian wedding of a lobbyist after his clients were awarded millions of dollars. The hotel Piccini was accused of staying at then at was the Four Seasons George V.<\/p>\n
There is no address listed on the Four Seasons expense. Bugden said he was certain the Four Seasons expense listed was in Ontario, and it wasn\u2019t in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you 100 per cent there were no overnight stays paid for by the constituency association for David Piccini to stay at the Four Seasons in Toronto,\u201d Bugden said.<\/p>\n
He also said he didn\u2019t believe that the rise in donations or expenses were related to the Skills Development Fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really doubt it. He\u2019s a pretty honest guy. I doubt if there\u2019s anything like that going on with David Piccini,\u201d said Bugden.<\/p>\n
Other politicians\u2019 expenses<\/p>\n
CTV News also examined a sample of constituency associations from a variety of other high-profile politicians.<\/p>\n
In 2024, John Fraser\u2019s constituency association raised about $20,000 for a total income of $34,000 including the per-vote subsidy. The only meal expense was the Lone Star Hunt Club for $238, and travel was gas for $257.<\/p>\n
NDP leader Marit Stiles\u2019s constituency association had a total income of $37,273 including a per-vote subsidy of $8,474. The two meetings hosted were listed as the George Chuvalo Centre at $375 and Sugarbomb at $270.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini\u2019s constituency association spent thousands of dollars at The Four Seasons Hotel, a limousine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":["post-817782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817782","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=817782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}