More than half the time, the Ontario labour minister’s office overrode the opinions of non-partisan staff to dole out around $750 million in grants to a multi-billion-dollar job training fund, according to the province’s Auditor General’s report released Wednesday.

Many of those successful lower-ranked applications to the Skills Development Fund (SDF) were backed by lobbyists, whose projects received $126 million in funding, raising a spectre of possible preferential treatment, the report said — all of it a significant expansion of concerns about the troubled fund.

  • RandAlThor@lemmy.caOP
    8·
    2 months ago

    This is NOT small grants. This is MASSIVE.

    In one case, Toronto-based company Scale Hospitality received at least $11 million in grants to train workers in its chain of restaurants, despite receiving a low score from bureaucrats.

    In another case, CTV News revealed a casino, spa and hotel company got some $9 million in grants — millions more than had been announced. Its CEO is also a PC donor.