Ontario labour minister under fire for skills development funding

TORONTO – Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini was in the hot seat Monday, facing a slew of questions and accusations about a $2.5-billion fund as politicians returned to Queen’s Park for the first time in months.

Opposition parties focused most of their questions on findings from a recent Ontario auditor general report on the Skills Development Fund, which she said was not “fair, transparent or accountable.”

The auditor found that Piccini’s office has been heavily involved in selecting projects that get funded under the $2.5-billion skills training program and has doled out money to applicants ranked low by bureaucrats without documenting why. 

Various media reports have said that some beneficiaries of the fund are unions that endorsed the Progressive Conservatives in elections and people who have donated to the party.

The auditor also found that more than 60 of the lower-scoring applicants were approved after they hired a lobbyist, which has the opposition crying foul over what they call preferential treatment.

All three opposition parties are calling on Premier Doug Ford to ask for Piccini’s resignation.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the purpose of the fund is good and she supports it, but the way Piccini and his office have handled it leaves the whole program in question.

“It is supposed to be training workers,” she said after question period. 

“Every single dollar needs to go to working people. It needs to go to training workers and what we found right now is that there is a cloud over the whole fund because of this minister’s misbehaviour, and it is ultimately at the premier’s feet.”

Ford and Piccini are resisting that call, with Piccini touting the benefits of the fund, saying it has helped thousands of people find jobs.

“This is about funding important programming that’s changing people’s lives, supporting first responders, supporting our construction sector,” Piccini. “President Trump has launched an all-out assault on our economy.”

The Trillium reported that one of the lobbyists whose clients successfully got money through the fund is a close, personal friend of Piccini. The minister told radio station NewsTalk1010 that one of those clients’ projects chosen for funding had been ranked lower.

Liberal parliamentary leader John Fraser said that is the definition of a conflict of interest.

“He’s used his influence to further his friends’ benefit,” he said in the legislature to the premier. 

“If you don’t think that’s wrong, that means you think it’s OK, that all this is good, that everything that’s happened in the Skills Development Fund is OK, if you don’t fire this minister.”

Piccini’s office has not provided a list of all of the recipients of the Skills Development Fund and how bureaucrats ranked their applications. 

Similar programs in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador do not have ministers’ offices making specific funding decisions, the auditor has said.

Shelley Spence found that in the first two rounds of funding, Piccini’s office did not give a documented reason as to why it chose 388 projects that received a total of $479 million.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2025.