Ford government says it's tightened rules for next round of skills development funding

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives say they have fixed the lobbyist problem, now requiring applicants disclose their use, while recasting the fund as a tool in the trade war started by U.S. President Donald Trump, but critics told the Star the $2.5-billion fund remains prone to politicization, raising the question of whether it can handle growing demands.

The current changes — based on the auditor’s recommendations — include tracking employment at three, six and 12 months, promise a more “rigorous” approval process for applicants and transparency around lobbyist use, including verification within the lobbyist registry. The Labour Ministry said it went “above and beyond” the auditor’s report with a plan seek out identification of all individuals, including directors of boards, involved in groups that get money from the fund.

“They’re all good changes and probably things that should have been thought of the first time around but the change that they didn’t make is to take the minister’s office out of selection process,” said Thomas Klassen, an expert in labour market policy and a professor at York University’s School of Public Policy and Administration.

That decision is a “huge disappointment,” said Katherine Scott, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“We are looking for impactful employment and skills training right now at a moment when lots of people are struggling with the basics and breaking into the labour market,” Scott said. “It’s crucially important that we’re delivering the best that we can for citizens of Ontario — and this isn’t the best we can do.”

While the report by auditor general Shelley Spence pointed out that provinces with similar job-training funds allow bureaucrats to control decisions, she did not recommend that Ontario’s labour minister be removed from decision-making. Ford recently appointed former police officer Trevor Jones as labour minister and moved his predecessor, David Piccini to lead the infrastructure ministry. Piccini is awaiting the results of an integrity commissioner’s investigation into opposition party allegations of ethical breaches under the Members’ Integrity Act.

Michel Figueredo, a spokesperson for the labour minister’s office, said the program is evolving with the labour market “ensuring funding continues to respond to the sectors, regions and workers where the need is greatest.”

Figueredo said the government’s direction of 45 per cent of the funds in the program’s sixth round to the skilled trades aligns with the federal government’s plans, “especially with their own recent skills training announcement and big infrastructure projects.”

Another 25 per cent of this round’s $260 million of funding will go toward training for workers impacted by the tariffs, the Labour Ministry said. Round six money was announced in late July 2025 and applications closed roughly two months later, with awards announcements starting last spring.

Figueredo said the current decisions reflect Ontario’s economic priorities, with a “stronger focus on the skilled trades, construction, manufacturing and industries facing pressure as a result of President Trump’s tariffs and tariff threats.”

In April, Carney announced a “Team Canada Strong” program created to train up to 100,000 “new Red Seal trades” a designation that Skilled Trades Ontario said denotes “demonstrated competence” allowing for “greater labour mobility across Canada.”

Spence’s audit examined decisions dating back to the fund’s inception in 2021 when Monte McNaughton was the labour minister, with the original intention of helping workers through the job losses created by the pandemic. 

A Labour Ministry source, who spoke on condition they were not identified in order to share internal details, said Piccini took the brunt of the political fallout even though he was not “fully” involved until the fifth round of funding. Piccini became labour minister in September 2023, shortly after round four was announced, which the source said followed Ford’s earlier process. In round six, which implements changes made under Piccini’s watch, the ministry said it “strengthened” evaluation methods used by ministry officials. 

Prior to the firestorm launched by the auditor’s report, the ministry had been working toward changes such as more detailed data collection on employment outcomes, said the source.

Last fall, the Star obtained a secret internal ministry database that included decisions and scores for round five. That included $1 million awarded to a newspaper chain for staff training in artificial intelligence, and another $1 million for an e-scooter company that planned to give employees training on the “transformative impact of AI in fintech.” Both of those applications were approved by Picinni despite receiving scores of 42 out of 100 from bureaucrats.

The highest scoring application in the database was 94 out of 100. It was from a Toronto organization called Building Up, which gives construction training to people from marginalized backgrounds.

Described as a not-for-profit and a social enterprise, Building Up was awarded $952,000 in the first quarter of 2025. Co-executive director Marc Soberano told the Star the program provides skills in construction training with long-term “wraparound” services, including mental health supports, for participants from challenged backgrounds, such as refugees or people who have been incarcerated. 

In the database, the “minister’s rationale” for funding Building Up said the project will “provide more equality of opportunity.”