TorontoOntario’s auditor general latest special report says Labour Minister David Piccini’s office is heavily involved in selecting which applicants get money from the $2.5-billion skills training fund.More than half of funded projects were ranked by ministry staff as poor, low or medium against program’s goalsAllison Jones · The Canadian Press · Posted: Oct 01, 2025 11:57 AM EDT | Last Updated: 41 minutes agoOntario’s auditor general reported that projects funded by the province’s skill training fund had not been chosen in a fair or transparent manner. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)Ontario’s auditor general says the provincial labour minister’s office has not been using a fair or transparent process to dole out money from a $2.5-billion skills training fund.The Skills Development Fund gives money to organizations for projects that help hire, train or retrain workers and the auditor says Minister David Piccini’s office is heavily involved in selecting which applicants get money.Auditor general Shelley Spence says in a report Wednesday that more than half of the projects Piccini’s office gave funding to were ranked by bureaucrats as poor, low or medium against the program’s goals and criteria.Those applications received about $742 million over the first five rounds of funding.”It is troubling,” she said at a news conference. “That’s why we recommended that the staffers take a look at the explanations, and if they don’t make sense, go back to the minister’s office and say, ‘Hey … I’m not understanding why this was selected.'”The auditor also found that 64 low- and medium-ranked projects that Piccini’s office chose for funding had hired registered lobbyists.WATCH | Last September, Premier Doug Ford announced funding for skills training in Windsor: How Doug Ford’s government plans to get people in Windsor workingWhen asked what advice he has for people in the city with the highest unemployment rate in Canada looking for a job, Premier Doug Ford said they should get a skilled trade. Here’s the plan to get people trained. NDP Leader Marit Stiles said it is “textbook preferential treatment.””There’s nothing that galls me more than when governments have abused the taxpayers’ trust, the people’s trust,” she said.A spokesperson for Piccini said the fund is open to everyone and has supported more than 1,000 projects that have helped more than 100,000 people “achieve employment.””We have already begun implementing the auditor general’s recommendations through more rigorous tracking of clients, and ongoing evaluation criteria updates as a part of our efforts to improve this life-changing program that is training workers in every corner of the province,” Michel Figueredo wrote in a statement.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.Similar programs in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador do not have ministers’ offices making specific funding decisions, Spence said.
Ontario not fair, transparent when giving out skills training funding, auditor finds
