Labour Minister David Piccini has been under fire for his management of the Skills Development Fund, including his links to Keel Digital Solutions.Laura Proctor/The Canadian Press
An Ontario company under police review for alleged “suspicious activity” related to provincial funding is accusing Premier Doug Ford’s government of blurring facts to dodge accountability over a controversial worker-training fund.
In a statement Monday, Keel Digital Solutions demanded the government provide a copy of the full forensic audit of the company that it referred to the Ontario Provincial Police. Keel operates an artificial-intelligence-driven virtual mental-health counselling platform for students and police officers.
“Release the audit to us and let the OPP begin,” said chief digital officer Ahad Bandealy. “A referral is not a verdict, despite what the government wants the public to believe. ... Every day the audit stays secret, we’re made to fight a ghost, and vulnerable people lose access to care.”
The company said executives were repeatedly told by auditors that the audit process did not identify any irregularities or “red flags.” Keel says it welcomes the OPP review and will co-operate fully with police.
Keel Digital Solutions, which bought Get-A-Head Inc. in 2022, was awarded around $40-million from the province over the past several years, including from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, the Ministry of Health and the Labour Ministry’s Skills Development Fund.
The Skills Development Fund has been the subject of a political firestorm since the provincial Auditor-General Shelley Spence concluded in a report last month that the distribution of $1.3-billion in grants from the program was “not fair, transparent or accountable.”
Her report said the Labour Minister’s political staff ignored evaluations by non-partisan bureaucrats and doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations with lower scores on their applications, while hundreds of higher-ranked applicants were overlooked.
In Monday’s statement, Keel Digital Solutions said the government’s forensic audit of its operations relates to Keel Mind, its student mental-health counselling services funded by the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, which is distinct from the Skills Development Fund controversy.
“The Ontario government is blurring two separate things: Keel Mind’s MCU student mental health work and the Skills Development Fund (SDF) for the sole purpose of distracting from a self-inflicted mess. That conflation is improper and is fuelling speculation instead of focusing on facts,” the statement said.
Ontario’s Premier told reporters at Queen’s Park that the government would not be releasing the forensic audit of Keel as the company has requested.
“It’s in the hands of the OPP, and I want to see what they have to say, and then we’ll be able to go from there,” Mr. Ford said. “If there is anything serious there, they’ll find it.”
The government said last week that a routine audit in 2023 “identified irregularities” that led to a comprehensive forensic audit of the company. The province said it referred the matter to the OPP after receiving the results of the forensic audit earlier this month.
The government also said it is reviewing all payments associated with the company and may take further action.
Ford chief of staff warns employees not to have contact with company after police referral
The OPP confirmed on Friday that its anti-rackets branch is looking into the matter in order to determine whether to launch a criminal investigation after the government had referred “suspicious activity” related to transfer payments to the company.
Keel Digital Solutions said on Monday that the government is “withholding” $8.33-million in payments for services it has delivered since April 1, forcing it to lay off more than two dozen workers. The company demanded the province resume payments or “set out a clear path to continuity” so services can continue.
“Only the government would bully a company by not paying for services delivered over 8 months, putting student mental health at risk,” the statement said.
Keel Digital Solutions’ links to Labour Minister David Piccini have been part of the political storm over his management of the $2.5-billion Skills Development Fund, which hands out cash to unions, companies and non-profits for training programs.
A lobbyist for Get A-Head and Keel, Michael Rudderham, invited Mr. Piccini to attend his wedding in Paris this fall, and has donated thousands to the PC Party. Mr. Rudderham said last week that he did work for the company but was “not involved with the [Ministry of Colleges and Universities] MCU stuff.”
Groups that got cash from Ontario training fund increasingly hired lobbyists, numbers show
Mr. Piccini also sat in a rinkside seat at a Toronto Maple Leafs’ game with Peter Zakarow, a director of Keel, in 2023, before Mr. Piccini became Labour Minister. Mr. Zakarow said last week that he was an independent board member and has never spoken to the minister or anyone else in the government about the company. The minister has said he paid his own way for both events.
Mr. Piccini has also told Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010 last month that his office chose to give Skills Development Fund money to the program despite the “lower-scoring” ranking it received from the civil servants that evaluated applications.
Asked on Monday why the government would approve cash for a company even after an initial 2023 audit had raised issues, the Premier said that Keel’s funding had been frozen when red flags emerged. (The company said government cash was only withheld starting in April.)
“We froze funding, right across the board, when we see something like that, we automatically freeze funding. We give out billions and billions of dollars. And anyone who gets it is going to be held accountable,” Mr. Ford told reporters.
Mr. Ford also told reporters he would not fire Mr. Piccini.
The Premier defended his minister’s prerogative to approve funding for applicants whose bids were rated poorly by the ministry bureaucracy, saying public servants do not have the same access to “get into the field to talk to the frontline people.”