EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini attended the Parisian wedding of a lobbyist after his office awarded the lobbyist’s clients millions of dollars through a training fund program the province’s auditor general recently described as “not fair, transparent or accountable.”
Piccini, who has final say over who receives money through the $2.5-billion Skills Development Fund (SDF), was in Paris this weekend at the wedding of Michael Rudderham, a lobbyist and longtime friend of the minister, The Trillium can report based on well-placed sources and social media records.
Rudderham’s wedding was held on Saturday, during Paris Fashion Week, at the five-star Four Seasons Hotel George V, a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower.
A spokesperson for Piccini did not respond by press time to questions The Trillium asked him in an email about attending the wedding, his and Rudderham’s friendship, and Rudderham’s lobbying and clients.
Rudderham also did not respond by press time to questions sent to him via his LinkedIn profile and by text.
Piccini was absent from Queen’s Park last Wednesday, when Ontario’s auditor general released four reports, including one torching the Ford government’s $2.5 billion worker-training program. Four cabinet ministers faced the media later that day — but only Piccini did so remotely, fending off reporters’ questions about the Skills Development Fund via a TV screen from an undisclosed location.
Over the last two rounds of the SDF, two clients that Rudderham was registered to lobby for received just over $8.5 million in total in grants from the funding program. The auditor general found that while civil servants evaluated SDF applications, the labour minister’s office “selected” which ones to fund.
One of Rudderham’s clients — Keel Digital Solutions, previously known as Get A-Head Inc. — received two SDF grants, totalling over $7.5 million, according to information about grants obtained from the ministry using the freedom-of-information system.
Another client of Rudderham’s, LifeLabs, received just under $1.2 million from Piccini’s ministry, roughly within the last year. Rudderham’s lobbying registrations for both companies were still active on Tuesday.
His registry filing for LifeLabs says his goal has been to “raise awareness, in the context of a skill development fund application, of the labour constraints felt by LifeLabs in the training and retention of medical lab technologists in rural areas.”
He appears to have been successful.
According to government records, the Ministry of Labour awarded Lifelabs skills development funding “to address the shortage of medical lab professionals in Ontario by training participants for employment at LifeLabs and developing clinical educators to sustain skills development, with a focus on long-term workforce solutions in Northern communities.”
Keel was funded to deliver “advanced mental health training and support for first responders across Ontario through the Keel Mind platform,” specifically for the York and Peel Regional Police forces.
Lobbyist, minister go back years: sources
According to five well-placed sources, Piccini and Rudderham are close friends who have known each other for several years.
They both lived or worked in Ottawa for much of the late-2000s to mid-2010s. Piccini wrapped up at the University of Ottawa during that time, then worked for a couple of years in the federal public service, before joining the Harper government as a staffer. Rudderham was registered to lobby federal officials for much of that period.
Since 2019, about $15,000 in political donations have been made to Ontario PC party causes by individuals with names matching those of Rudderham and his wife — including one $470 donation from “Michael Rudderham” to Piccini’s riding association.
Rudderham and Piccini were involved in a push to create a university in Brampton in 2019 and 2020, when Piccini was parliamentary assistant to Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown faced scrutiny after companies with ties to him won contracts to work on the project. Rudderham was a member of one of those companies, and Piccini wrote at one point that he looked forward to working with the city on the proposal.
Rudderham and Piccini each share other history with Brown, as well. Piccini became a PC candidate when Brown was leader, before his exit from provincial politics paved the way for Doug Ford to take over the party. Rudderham has aided Brown as a strategist in the past.
Premier touted funding for AI mental health platform
Keel Digital Solutions, which looked to use Labour Ministry funding to help first responders, describes itself as “a leader in AI-driven mental health training and assessments.”
In a release last year, the provincial government said Keel would use the SDF money to create a “new digital platform” that would use “cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence” to train about 160 peer support workers “to provide better mental health supports to thousands of police officers across Ontario, including over 2,000 officers in Peel Region.”
The AI-powered platform would make it easier “to identify colleagues in distress and deliver care better tailored to their needs, while automating routine organizational tasks to allow them to spend more time supporting their colleagues,” the news release said.
Premier Doug Ford and Piccini spoke highly of the project — Ford said it “will provide critical mental health support for our men and women in uniform.”
“By investing in training and upskilling for police peer support workers, we are helping to make sure they have the latest tools to provide the best mental health support to our first responders,” Piccini added.
In a company release, Keel said it aims “to make mental health as objectively measurable as physical health,” and is “excited to extend our technology to first responders and indigenous communities.”
Neither LifeLabs nor Keel Digital Solutions responded before this story’s publication to questions that The Trillium asked them in emails on Tuesday.
Auditor general Shelley Spence’s report on the Skills Development Fund highlighted that less than half of recipients were given “high” scores on their proposals by the non-partisan civil servants tasked with evaluating them. Most chosen by the labour minister’s office were given “medium” or “low” scores, Spence noted.
The auditor general’s office identified 64 low- and medium-ranked applications that enlisted lobbyists’ help beforehand and received $126 million in SDF grants.
The Trillium reported on Monday that clients of lobbying firms with connections to the premier and his nephew have seen significant success in applying for SDF grants. Clients of a single firm owned by Doug Ford’s campaign manager have received more than $100 million from the fund.
“I can tell you — every organization, some of the largest corporations, governments, municipalities — they have lobbyists,” Ford said on Tuesday. “What we make a decision on (is) what's best for the people.”
The Trillium has previously reported on Ford government-connected groups that received generous Skills Development Fund grants, including a restaurant business with connections to a former key aide to the premier; a centre that trains people to work in clubs run by a longtime Ford associate; and a dental practice brokerage whose CEO worked closely with the wife of the former labour minister.