Editor's note: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Months before he was put in charge of Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, cabinet minister David Piccini was at a Toronto Maple Leafs game in front-row seats with a director of a company his office would later give $7.5 million in taxpayer-funded grants to.
Keel Digital Solutions, a two-time recipient of the Skills Development Fund (SDF), is also a client of the lobbyist whose Parisian wedding Piccini attended on Saturday, days after the auditor general labelled the worker-training program “not fair, transparent or accountable.”
Regarding Piccini's attendance at the Maple Leafs game — which was on Jan. 17, 2023, while he was Ontario's environment minister — Piccini's office wrote in a statement, "Minister Piccini is a lifelong sports fan who purchases his own tickets to games."
About the same company's lobbyist's wedding that he attended in Paris last weekend, the labour minister's office said, "Minister Piccini travelled to Europe for a long-planned private family trip."
"While abroad, he attended a wedding. Expenses associated with both were paid by him, and he stayed at a different hotel than where the wedding took place," said Piccini's office.
On Wednesday, shortly after The Trillium exclusively reported that Piccini went to the wedding of Michael Rudderham, Keel Digital Solutions’ lobbyist, the labour minister revealed in a radio interview that the program the company got funding for was given a “lower” score by his ministry.
“There were projects that were lower-scoring that we did select — and that’s a conversation I have with our officials here — that align with government priorities,” Piccini said on Newstalk 1010.
“I mean, Peel Police — we supported (a) lower-scoring project. It supports mental health,” he said, referring to the Skills Development Fund-supported initiative that Keel was given grant funding for.
Labour Ministry records show that through a company Keel owns, called Get A-Head, Keel received SDF grants of $2.7 million and $4.8 million to provide an AI-driven platform to train peer support workers to better help with cops’ mental health.
“Our first responders are more likely than the general population to commit suicide. That’s a real reality,” Piccini said on Wednesday.
Peter Zakarow is one of Keel Digital Solutions’ board members. While its corporate records show he officially became a director on Feb. 1, 2024, he says on his LinkedIn profile that he’s been involved with the company since January 2022. At that time, Zakarow was partway through a short stint on the board of the LCBO, which Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet appointed him to in June 2021.
Rudderham, the lobbyist and friend of Piccini whose wedding the minister attended, first registered to advocate to Ontario government officials for Get A-Head in January 2022.
Keel’s talks with Get A-Head about acquiring the business began around the same time, one of the company’s directors said in a YouTube video. It completed its purchase of Get A-Head later in 2022.
Photos and videos taken at the Leafs’ Jan. 17, 2023, game against the Florida Panthers show Zakarow and Piccini together at Scotiabank Arena, in 100-level glass seats. After Leafs forward William Nylander scored a game-winning overtime goal, he crashed into the boards — where Piccini and Zakarow were seen celebrating.
The day after the Toronto-Florida matchup, the Maple Leafs posted a picture of Nylander celebrating his game-winner on Instagram with the caption, “Hope you have a Willy great day 🙂”. Piccini and Zakarow are seen together behind the glass. The pair can also be seen celebrating at 4:44 of the following highlight video.
Maple Leafs ticket prices are consistently among the most expensive in the NHL. Seats for a January game against the Panthers this season, around where Piccini was sitting, are currently retailing for between about $500 and $1,500 each — though they may be more in demand than in 2023, as Florida has since won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
Ford made Piccini the province’s labour minister eight months later, in September 2023, after Monte McNaughton resigned from the position, shortly before the former minister left elected politics altogether.
The Ministry of Labour issued Get A-Head its SDF grants in rounds four and five of the program, the two that have so far been decided by Piccini and his staff.
Non-partisan ministry officials evaluated applications and assigned them scores of “high,” “medium,” “low” or “poor,” depending on how they met the funding program’s criteria. The labour minister’s office has then “selected the applications to fund,” as the auditor general revealed in the report on the SDF that her office published last week.
Of the 1,014 SDF applications that McNaughton’s and Piccini’s offices have so far granted $1.3 billion to, only 46 per cent were given “high” scores by ministry officials, the auditor found. Hundreds of high-scored applications have been rejected.
The remaining 54 per cent of SDF grants went to lower-scoring applicants, including Get A-Head. Out of all recipients, 26 per cent had “medium” scores and 28 per cent had “low” scores. A single recipient was granted funding from an application that ministry officials scored “poor,” according to the auditor’s report.
Piccini did not say how exactly Get A-Head’s project was ranked, only that it was “lower-scoring.”
According to Labour Ministry-provided data, with its first funding allocation of $2.7 million, Get A-Head agreed to train 160 peer support workers but ended up training 367.
At least some of the projects supported by the Skills Development Fund’s fifth round of funding are still ongoing. In total, through the SDF’s first four funding rounds, recipient organizations reported to the Ministry of Labour that they had 675,991 participants in their training, upskilling and other worker-focused programs, which was 84,271 more than planned for.
—With files from Jessica Smith Cross