A non-profit with ties to Toronto’s best-known rapper got about $3.3 million from Ontario’s Skills Development Fund — but has since shut down, and the province claims the group owes it money.
A recent auditor general’s report suggests it was one of the many recipients of public funds that the labour minister’s office picked against the advice of non-partisan civil servants.
In August 2023, the Justice Fund announced the launch of a $4-million skills-building program for marginalized youth funded by the province.
The non-profit was cofounded by music producer Noah “40” Shebib, known for his work with Drake and their OVO Sound record label. The provincial funding was unveiled at the “OVO Social Justice Summit,” a flashy event in downtown Toronto featuring musical performances and fireside chats with the mayor of Toronto and a vice-president of the Raptors.
At the same time, the Justice Fund announced partnerships with other groups: OVO Sound, the NBA Foundation, the TTC, Toronto Community Housing Corporation and Drake — it said one dollar from each ticket sold to the rapper’s "It's All a Blur" tour would be donated to the not-for-profit.
Less than two years later, the Justice Fund was dead.
“We didn’t get it all right. But we showed up — boldly, honestly, and without compromise. And that mattered,” the group said in a June 16 post to Instagram featuring an image of a tombstone with “Justice Fund 2021 - 2025” on it.
“This isn’t a goodbye to the work — just to the structure,” it continued. “We closed with intention.”
Corporate records show the non-profit corporation was dissolved on July 7, then revived on Sept. 10 because of the interest of a creditor identified as Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, which means the ministry asserted that the Justice Fund owed it money.
According to a government official who briefed The Trillium, the province can recover funds from an SDF applicant that defaults on its contractual obligations. If that happens, payments are suspended and legal counsel is consulted.
The official could not comment on the Justice Fund because an investigation is ongoing.
Yonis Hassan, who was CEO of the Justice Fund, said his organization did good work.
“We gave the money for all the community organizations that we had stated we were going to give it to — whether or not they reported back to the province during the reporting or audit process is on them,” he said.
Although no specific SDF recipients were named by auditor general Shelley Spence in her scathing report on the Skills Development Fund released earlier this month, the Justice Fund appears to match an unnamed example she gave of a project that went badly after the minister’s office ignored civil servants’ concerns and went ahead with funding it without addressing them.
The auditor found that the minister and political staff frequently overruled non-partisan civil servants to award grant money to groups that the ministry gave “low” or "medium" scores to on their funding applications, passing over many groups the ministry had scored “high.”
In the example matching the Justice Fund’s circumstances, civil servants scored the project’s application “low” at 47 per cent because it had been active for only three years with no governing board; had no experience managing public monies and the accompanying data collection; it had limited experience delivering employment programming, and it presented an inflated budget with no quotes provided for capital expenditures, the report said.
“While the minister's office agreed to fund this applicant for $4 million, or approximately 67 per cent of the $6 million requested, that amount of funding was more than what 199 (95%) of the applications selected in that round were approved for,” the auditor’s report said.
The Justice Fund was given $3.3 million by the Ministry of Labour, which, according to the auditor general, generally holds back about 15 per cent of the total amount until the successful completion of the project. The case described in the report was not successful.
“The project subsequently had compliance issues with its (transfer payment agreement) requirements, including missed targets, failing to meet on-site monitoring requirements, incomplete participant activity reports and late or missing project activity submissions.”
Hassan denied it could be his former organization.
The Justice Fund was in contact with the labour minister’s office before it was awarded the funds in early 2023. The office of then-minister Monte McNaughton quoted Hassan praising the SDF in a press release issued in September 2022, announcing the opening of the application period for the third round of training grants, in which the Justice Fund was later selected.
In November 2022, the group said online it had “provided support and guidance” to the province on the SDF, specifically on “prioritization for youth in conflict with law.”
Around that time, it also said online that it worked on a Skills Development Fund-backed project aimed at training hospitality workers by Scale Hospitality, which was awarded $17 million from the SDF, even though its first application was submitted late and ranked “low” by civil servants.
Both Scale and the Justice Fund were represented by Atlas Strategic Advisors, according to Ontario’s lobbyist registry.
Lobbyists with the firm registered on behalf of the Justice Fund shortly after the SDF funds were awarded in early 2023. The lobby firm is run by Amin Massoudi, a former aide to the premier who grabbed headlines in recent years for having vacationed in Las Vegas with a Greenbelt developer.
Massoudi said his firm “played no role in the preparation, submission, or approval of (the Justice Fund’s SDF) application.”
A spokesperson for Labour Minister David Piccini declined to comment directly on the Justice Fund or give The Trillium information on the funding it was awarded, the scoring its application received from civil servants, and whether or not it met any of the goals it committed to when it signed a transfer payment agreement with the ministry.
“The Skills Development Fund changes lives and aims to train over one million workers across Ontario for in-demand jobs in the skilled trades, manufacturing, and health care,” said the spokesperson, Michel Figueredo.
“We have implemented strong evaluation methods, new selection criteria, and modern technology to better track outcomes at 3, 6, and 12 months post-training to improve recipient performance measurement — not just immediate job placements, but long-term career growth,” Figueredo continued. “After every funding round, we review our processes to ensure the program continues to meet Ontario’s evolving economic needs, support priority sectors, and address labour market demands.”
“The changes we’ve made, combined with the auditor general’s feedback, are evolving this critical program to better equip workers in every corner of the province with the skills they need to land better jobs with bigger paycheques.”
—With files from Charlie Pinkerton and Jack Hauen