Welcome everyone to the OnPy podcast.

I'm John Michael McGrath

>> and I'm Jessica Smith Cross.

>> Today on the pod, the NDP have formally asked the integrity commissioner to investigate the labor minister as the skills development fund controversy continues.

>> Bill 60 passed through the legislature and some are sounding the alarm about water safety.

>> And if Ontario Place wasn't enough, now we need to ask if the Ford government is eyeing exhibition place as well.

>> It's November 28th, 2025. Let's get to it.

Jessica Smith Cross, welcome back to the podcast. Supposed I have to do Steve's job and sugar.

>> Even I, a a sports ignoramus knows what a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt is. Yeah.

>> But uh why are you wearing that today?

>> It's not because I'm a fan. Because John, I am I'm not a hockey fan. Not even because you enjoy pain and suffering.

No, we're going to talk about the skills development fund today. And there's a Maple Leafs tie-in. So, when we uh said we should do a fun shirt, I picked a fun shirt.

>> Okay. Well, uh I am also tying uh my shirt into and I'm wearing one of my Godzilla t-shirts. Uh there we go. Um I I own many Godzilla t-shirts. And I think I might have to adopt a rule that uh every week where there is um an outburst of the kind that I think of as as classic Doug Ford uh that I will wear a Godzilla t-shirt um because of the way he tends to sort of traml through

>> an ode to Fordzilla.

>> Um and we will discuss that a bit later. But yes, the the the premier had an outburst this week. Um and uh yeah, we we will uh discuss that uh in one of our later segments. Uh so without further ado, let's get to issue one.

The government's skills development fund scandal continues this week with NDP leader Marit Stiles filing a complaint to the province's integrity commissioner that alleges Labor Minister David Pacini may have broken provincial law while overseeing the distribution of provincial grants. Before we get to that story though, I would love to get to the story behind the story if we can. Uh Jessica Trillium has really been leading a lot of the coverage uh for the story for weeks now and I'm hoping you can tell us a bit of the background here. Uh what got you started down this road?

>> I guess there were two different things. Uh the first uh one of our reporters, Charlie Pinkerton, had done an FOI request, a freedom of information request for some documents related to a different story, but they turned up some communications about the skills development fund and a group that was awarded funding. And what the email showed was that the civil servants said that it had the project had been scored low in their assessment, but the minister's office had decided to fund it anyways. And this is something that like months and months months later, the auditor general would do a whole report on became a big deal. But then it was just this one group that we knew of and he did a story. Now at around the same time, we were hearing from sources stuff like this is a bit of a slush fund. You guys should be looking into this. And in the last election, you could see that a lot of the labor groups that endorsed the PCs also had gotten skills development fund and and then were very open about that. Like I was at the campaign launch in Windsor. Talked to one of the guys who'd been standing behind the premier that day. It's like why are you supporting the pre the premier? Why are you supporting the PCs? And the guy was like, "Oh, they gave us a bunch of money, right? Just

>> that'll do it."

>> So we agree with that. Like that's great. This is what we want. So that's fair enough. But so we started to look into it. We made it basically a project over the summer. Uh the first step was getting a comprehensive list of who got how much money, which we still haven't actually quite hit. Um we had to FOI for the latest rounds. Um and it just it was a huge headache. But we got rounds four and five and the list of funders fund the groups that got funding earlier. And then it was a matter of doing the research. Who runs these groups? Who are they? Uh what connections do they have to the PCs or the government? um have they who are their lobbyists? Uh how have they donated money to the party? And it was that kind of story that really got got rolling. Then the AG's report came out and then tips started flowing in. So the stuff about the Leafs game and Minister Pacini and the the wedding in Paris and all that that that came after we started just doing the basic story about who got the money and what connections they might have to the government.

>> Right. Uh you mentioned the uh not having the complete list quite yet. You've foied it. uh you the trillium has uh launched a a bit of a crowdfunding effort to try and cover some of the costs. Public may not always understand that when media outlets file for a freedom of information requests, it is very common for the government to come back and say, "Well, if you want all of these documents, you have to pay, you know, x dollars, you've been uh quoted a very large sum."

>> Yes. Some So, we've done a lot of FOI requests. We do a lot of FOI requests. Most of them we haven't a budget to handle, but we did a series of requests looking for communications uh and documents related to it. Like a handful of these groups that got funding that we had learned early on had connections to the government and stuff that had been the focus of some of our reportings. Uh the cost over $10,000 for this handful of requests. So we launched a crowdfunding campaign where we're asking voters, people, readers to to send in some money if they want to see these documents come to light and the our commitment is to spend the money only on fo the foi requests uh and to make them public if when we get documents whatever they happen to be and any stories that we write on them will also be unpayweld.

>> Oh very nice.

>> Yeah.

>> All right. Now of course as I mentioned earlier uh the NDP leader Mart Stiles has filed a complaint to the integrity commissioner.

Previous complaints to the integrity commissioner uh haven't amounted to much for a very good reason. Uh the integrity commissioner cannot actually impose uh penalties on MPPPS even if they do find breaches of the law. Uh folks might remember from the green belt scandal that Steve Clark was found to have breached the Members Integrity Act in 2023. But it is up to the legislature to hold a vote for uh any punishments for a member. No such vote ever occurred. Then we had an election. I think it's safe to say that's a dead issue now. So far, do you get any sense of whether the premier is actually looking to distance himself from this labor minister?

>> I will get to that, I swear. But first, I I want to disagree with you about the idea, okay,

>> about the integrity commissioner reports, not like I agree with you.

You're right that they're not going to see anybody kicked out of office. You're absolutely right. Um, but when you look at the green belt report, a lot of the things that we know about what happened in the whole Green Belt affair came from the Integrity Commissioner's investigation. the integrity commissioner has the power to like subpoena people in documents, can do interviews under oath and can just get to a lot of the the facts of the matter that uh journalists just just can't do and that the auditor general just takes a bigger broader look at it. So I think it it is worthwhile and I and I understand why um why there's been such an emphasis from the opposition parties lately on trying to spur another integrity commissioner report. But as to the question about Ford standing by Pacini, absolutely. He's uh he's standing by him firmly right now.

>> Yeah. No, there's there's been no no sign of any daylight. Um it wouldn't be uh unusual if we did get a cabinet shuffle in uh the next, you know, few months, but um I I certainly uh all public appearances are that uh the premier is is is backing uh the minister. Certainly, I mean, even like we've seen this play before, right? when the government wants to start um moving a minister out of the spotlight like they stop answering questions in question period and no pacini is still there answering questions in in question period. So I I I suspect that uh at least for now uh he's staying where he is. Uh the NDP of course are not the only opposition party in the legislature and in the course of responding to uh Liberal John Fraser uh Premier Ford on Wednesday made the following threat to some of his government's critics and I believe we've got a clip. And you know what else we're going to audit, Madam Speaker? All these great organizations that funnel money to ACORN like QP and all the rest of them. But we give money we give money to agencies and they funnel it quietly to these left-wing radical groups and they aren't using it for what we thought they're going to use it. But I promise the NDP we will be auditing all these so-called charitable organizations that are funneling money.

Just stay tuned on that one.

>> Uh that was Premier Ford earlier this week. Uh now he said stay tuned on this one. We did stay tuned uh even before the day was out. They started walking that statement back. But what did you make of it, Jessica?

>> Uh that this is the reason you wore a Godzilla shirt today.

>> Yes indeed. This is uh the case of, as I say, classic Doug Ford, a bit of bluster from the premier.

>> Yeah. No, I I see that for sure. Uh this, I think, was just him getting ticked off by by being heckled by ACORN. Uh his comment uh you know, get a job, buddy. That

>> Yes,

>> he replied to in the midst of all this. You know, it made international news. I think he was ticked off. Uh, and the it seemed like where he was going with this was a threat to audit uh people who get public funding, maybe allies of the NDP, and find they'd been misusing it. But then, as you said, he walked it, it was never quite clear, and he walked it back before it could be uh damaging to the responsible government. You know, a responsible government doesn't audit its enemies and try to find things, right? Yeah, he sort of suggested that but then was like, "No, no, this is just a regular course of audits that we do."

>> Yeah. And and you know, maybe just to give people a bit of a behind the scenes here, you know, I was at the legislature that day after he made that statement and and we were all gathered in the uh hallway outside the chamber and the members of the press gallery were asking members of the premier staff like what did he mean by that? And it it was not forthcoming. It was I I think maybe they were as surprised as anybody to hear what the premier had said. Um, as you say, like a a a responsible government would not make these kinds of threats. And we're not going to do a your column, my column uh segment this week, but I I will just say that I did write for TVO about this because uh these kinds of threats are are worrisome precisely because the government has such incredibly broad powers to uh investigate people. One of the things we learned very early on in the Ford government, at least I did not know this until 2018 when the Ford government uh created, you may remember that um select committee that they used to investigate the fair hydro plan.

Something I learned during those proceedings is that um Canadian citizens do not have the right to remain silent before a parliamentary committee. If you do not answer a question from a a parliamentary committee, uh you are in contempt of parliament and that can face very serious penalties. the the government, the legislature, they have enormous powers. People should not make idle threats. Uh I I will leave that uh uh there. Um now, why of course was the premier so exercised about QP and ACORN? Uh because they were among the groups, as you mentioned, protesting the uh passage of a particular bill uh at the legislature on Monday. And which bill was that? For that, we will go to issue two.

Bill 60, the Fighting Delays Building Faster Act, passed its third reading at the legislature on Monday. We've talked about the impact of Bill 60 on renters before, including in last week's podcast, but one section of the bill has to do with water infrastructure in Peele region, and it's got some people raising alarm bells. Now, Jessica, you get to do uh something that is usually my job here. Uh try to make municipal policy interesting. So, who is so exercised about sewers in Bmpton and Missaga?

>> Yeah, I can't do what you do as you do it. That's just a you thing, but it's great. Uh what I can say, uh the NDP and other groups are raising concerns about this part of this bill. They are worried that it could re result in privatizing water and like selling off water services to private companies, profitering, and then water safety issues, bringing up Walkerton. Um the government is saying, "No, absolutely not. No way, no how. That is not what we're doing and it's not where we're going. This is about creating a publiclyowned corporate model for water and wastewater delivery with an emphasis on publiclyowned, not a private company.

>> Some people may not actually remember what Walker uh was, but this was in the '90s, a town in Bruce County, I believe, and uh there there was a failure of uh water safety, water treatment there. uh many people were made sick and uh it's it's now the you know I I think we we commonly use it as a shorthand for uh the perils of uh not properly regulating uh things in uh the public health uh sphere. So, as you say, the government has always maintained that this is not about privatization, that uh the the water system would remain publicly owned. But one of the concerns that has been raised here, one of the the the odd little specific details of Bill 60 is that there was already a section in Ontario's municipal law that allowed the creation of these kinds of corporations to to handle the kind of work that the government is looking at for the water system here. Whereas bill 60 requires that this new water company that will be created and it will handle the water and sewer services in Peele region uh that will be incorporated under the business corporations act. Now a company can be incorporated under the business corporations act and still be publicly owned. So it doesn't prove that the ultimate goal is to privatize anything but that is like the kind of detail that the critics are raising here. Like why reinvent the wheel if your aim is not ultimately uh something nefarious? Uh again I don't think that that proves the case but that's one of the concerns that is being raised. One of the things that might not be clear to to listeners here is why in Peele region? Why are we so excited about Peele region right now specifically,

>> right? So, let's go back and just do very brief capsule history here. We can remember of course Premier Ford made a promise to the late Hazel Mallen uh longtime mayor of uh Missaga that he would dissolve Peele region. Uh then he reneged on that promise when Bonnie Krombi became leader of the Liberal Party. Um but they set up this process of really rethinking all of the the the municipal governance in Peele region. And so now at the moment Peele is a bit of this lab for the province to experiment on because of that kind of odd uh history. Uh so but why do we care about water services in Peele region? And the answer there is because water infrastructure is one of the big drivers of development charges. Um it is what uh you know I I I did look this up a while ago and I I apologize because I've forgotten it but certainly I think at the the regional level sewer and water services are like the biggest part of the development charge uh levy uh for new homes in Peele region. So that's one side of it. Obviously the the uh value of development charges a big issue that this government has talked about uh you know trying to reduce development charges that kind of thing. uh but also just the delays in building water infrastructure can hold up the uh construction of new homes. So, you know, uh this is uh the government trying to address uh at least in part uh a a housing issue and potentially create a model that might be replicated elsewhere in the province.

>> So, basically the idea is see if this works in Peele region, this new mount model that they're going to try, see if that helps us get the water infrastructure faster, cheaper. I don't know.

>> Yeah. Faster, cheaper, and also uh some political value. Probably the hope is in taking it off of the property tax base. Uh and the idea here is that a a a single company in much the same way that like you know a a company runs your phone service, your internet service, uh your electricity. um instead of having this water company paid for out of property tax uh revenues that it would be paid for purely um uh by uh user charges and some of the costs on the side. So it does come back to housing with mo as most things do with you don't they?

>> Yeah I I cannot escape it and I have stopped trying. Uh but yes it all comes back to housing always. And with that on to issue three.

>> Within the text of bill 68 the plan to protect Ontario act were some details about exhibition place. Essentially the text would give the province control over the grounds. This has raised alarm bells with the opposition who called it a land grab. The government has since specified that the legislation will be used just to replace infrastructure like water pipes and wires. What else should we know here, Jess?

>> Well, this story reminds me of the last story that we talked about. Hear me out. Every so often we get these issues, these stories in Ontario politics where there's a massive gap between what the government could do with a piece of legislation, what it's empowering itself to do in some way and what it actually wants to do and then what its critics and the opposition parties believe its end goal is actually to do. And we're as journalists sort of left struggling to be like where's the reality? What's what's going on here? So this is one of those stories. Uh, and I think we get this these huge gaps between what is actually versions of what might be happening when there's not a lot of trust between the government and the opposition parties and the and the groups that are ringing alarm bells. So, here we go. Uh, an NDP MPP came out with a fairly breathless press release saying that the government was going to seize control of exhibition place. And so immediately that led to people being like the only way they're doing it that's finally gonna finally build that casino that we've always known that they've been planning to build. Not a lot of evidence for that but you know that's been the suspicion for a long time. Right. So

>> right the bill there is grounds for the MPP to say that the government could use this to to take control of Ontario place. really does give the government more power, sorry, over exhibition place uh in the context of the Ontario place redevelopment. It it allows it to do more than it has said it wants to do, which is just, you know, make things go faster when they're doing things like laying pipes and and wire and expediting development. So, here we are again, the government saying, "We just want it for this." the bill says they could do much more and there's not a lot of trust in the government for only doing what they say they want to do with this legislation that they're doing.

>> And you know, when you know the the NDP uh made their claims and then the government didn't exactly clarify things uh promptly or or quickly as fast as they could have, did they?

>> Yeah. No, it was a bit of a mess. We asked questions like, "Why do you need this?" And it was like, "Hold on, we'll get back to you vague statement that didn't actually answer any of those questions." And when that happens, it doesn't breed a lot of trust. And they also hadn't looped in the city, which was caught off guard. Uh and the city's obviously a huge partner in all things exhibition place. So no, that didn't help with this keeping down the the the fear and confusion.

>> Now, uh you mentioned this is all happening in the context of the Ontario Place redevelopment. Uh Charlie Pinkerton at the Trillium reported last week that that redevelopment, the Ontario Place redevelopment, could actually take substantially longer than the government has been claiming.

>> Yeah, he he did some uh FOI requests and got some briefing documents that said the construction period for the Thurma Spa should be 24 months with potential extensions up to 9 years, which is a lot longer. Does that mean it's going to take more time, 11, nine years or something? Not necessarily. But the government is planning for what would happen if it does take that long and it would cost the some money is the upshot of that.

>> Right. Uh one additional point of context that I I want to throw in here. You mentioned that like they didn't loop in the city and that's kind of a big deal because the city of Toronto owns Exhibition Place when the province shut down Ontario Place in gosh what was that 2011 2012. You know the the decision was ultimately very simple because the province was losing money on Ontario Place. Nobody really believed, at least in government, uh, in the then McGinty government, uh, nobody believed that there was a path back to profitability for a a government-run amusement park. Um, and all of the twists and turns in in the Ontario Place story since then, I would argue, you know, were largely because the wind government wanted to try and figure out some way to make money off of this land, you know, waterfront land in downtown Toronto. Uh it it you know certainly I I know the premier was getting advice from the the the finance ministry about how to you know turn that into uh an asset that would produce money for the people of Ontario. Of course this is in the context of big deficits uh during the win years. Um, but you know, she was she was getting all sorts of cross pressure, right? On the one hand, you want to uh redevelop Ontario Place in in a way that makes money, but on the other hand, uh downtown uh Toronto residents who vote liberal did not want a casino. They did not want condos. Um and once you rule out a lot of the either residential or commercial uses for that space, you just there's not a lot left to do.

>> And so not a lot happened at Ontario Place. And then Doug Ford wins in 2018 and a lot of different things start happening. Anyway, that is all context to say this is not what is happening at Exhibition Place. The city of Toronto owns Exhibition Place and I don't know if it makes money off of Exhibition Place every single year, but in general it's it is a a asset that pays money into the city. Uh the convention center is very busy. It's I think the one of the largest, if not the largest convention center in Canada. It is just a totally different story from Ontario Place. That is a a an asset that the city very much knows what it wants to do with, wants to hang on to. And so when you start ringing alarm bells about uh the the potential provincial takeover of Exhibition Place, the city of Toronto, not unreasonably, freaks right out.

>> All right, with that, let's go to the mailbag.

If you've got a burning question or insightful comment, you can always send it along to us at onp politicsvo.org. And uh this week, Jessica, you get to read uh the letter uh uh guests privilege. What do we have?

>> Here's an email from listener Scott Juru in Belleville who writes to us about a Trillium article. How convenient that I'm here. Hello. Big fan of the show. Here is an interesting article from the Trillium on municipalities using Ford/PC lobbyists to get things done for their municipality in 2024. This seems to be rather consistent methods/behavior with the skills development fund as well as other provincial programs. My question is, is this the way things have always worked in Ontario that using lobbyists formerly of the government or friends of MPP/theshadow Premier Saj Kandra's friends is the best way to get things done. Could you explain the issue better than I and dig deep into Steve's memories to see if this style of lobbying is the norm for past governments or is this mostly unprecedented from Scott Juru in Belleville, Ontario?

>> So, we can't dig into Steve's uh memories today, but we can dig into our own. But before we do that, we can uh actually dig into the Trillium's reporting here. Uh again, we're going to reference uh superstar Charlie Pinkerton. This is a story of his from about a year ago. Um, Jess, can you take us through the story?

>> Yeah, we need a third chair here for uh the story was about Brighton, Ontario. The city needed infrastructure funding to fix issues with its water systems. Uh, and it decided to hire a lobbying firm, Atlas Strategic Adviserss. Uh, that's a firm run by Amin Massudi, who was once Doug Ford's right-hand man. Uh, so what they did, these counselors, is they talked about this openly in council as if no one was listening. Um, but someone was, and it actually wasn't Charlie. He doesn't just listen in to random city council meetings.

>> Call in to random municipal councils around Ontario.

>> No, but there

>> we should keep that thread out there.

There was uh a local person who had like a newsletter and had some involvement in politics there and she brought their the comments to light which was stuff that the the Ontario government shed in light saying that the town was hiring a lobbyist to work the backroom not somebody for their technical expertise is no we have that this is a backroom guy because this is how stuff gets done in Ontario. That's what these counselors were saying. So big controversy at Queens Park. Uh you know the idea that you need to hire a firm close to premier to get anything done was something the opposition latched on to and the government vehemently rejected. Uh ultimately the town and Atlas stopped working together. Uh the town didn't get the funding it wanted in that round. But the idea of whether this is new that the reader that the letter writer asked about. Um it's not new for a government to have an ethics scandal.

>> Um the the idea that to get something done in Ontario, you need a well-connected person or to be a well-connected person is the same kind of idea that the government's getting in trouble for over the skills development fund. And it's sort of been an issue for this government since its early days with the whole Dean French patronage.

>> Yes. Oh gosh.

>> But it's all

>> every I forget about Dean French and then comes back up again.

>> Yeah.

Um but no, in general, this is not new for any government ever. Like I came to Queens Park when it was the Liberal government under fire for what they called the cash for access scandal of the day. This was big dinners with corporate donors getting facetime with ministers and the liberals dominating fundraising because of this.

>> Yeah. Ministers being given like explicit fundraising targets uh and and even you know complaining to the press anonymously about how ownorous their fundraising uh targets were that kind of thing. Um, no, as you say, like, you know, I I could, you know, even if you want to just talk narrowly about lobbying. I remember one of the ones that sticks in my mind was, um, a former aid for a Liberal Minister of Transportation went to go work for Tesla and some interval later, the government revised its EV subsidies uh, in a way that benefited Tesla, right? um these things are not uh unheard of, not novel.

But I guess I would say two things. one, my sense is that um it it at least was not quite so blatant and it it had not percolated all the way to municipalities where that you know I I don't remember any stories um from the from the wind era for example where municipalities were saying uh in open meetings at council certainly uh that you know the only way to to you know do business with the government was to uh hire a lobbyist. Um and the other thing that I think is going to be more interesting looking forward uh both for uh the PC party and and for conservatives frankly around the country is the way that these things are playing out with the government. the the the proximity to lobbyists um is not just a uh uh a question of you know good public government and and and fairness and transparency and all uh those things which obviously we as journalists will continue to to keep an eye on but it is also an issue within the PC party right there are people within Doug Ford's party who are very put off by uh this whole element of government um and uh you know some of this is personalities right you know there are people who don't like some of the the people who are closest to the premier that kind of thing and then you know there's always that kind of grumbling um but there are people who sort of genuinely feel like you know uh policym is being dis distorted by the the the proximity of uh the premier to these lobbyists and you know I think if we had Matt spoke on the podcast a while back uh you know he's I would call him like a Tory dissident uh trying to you know um move the party in a different direction. Uh and and yeah, like the the relationship between the government and lobbyists is absolutely all in this mix of this question of what you know, what kind of conservatives do conservatives want their party to be and there are some who are looking at the results of Doug Ford and and not liking what they're seeing.

>> Yeah. The Project Ontario people are on the slightly they would describe themselves as I think more conservative than the PC government. Yeah. And they're very critical of their ethics as critical as you might find like comments from the NDP which is always interesting to see.

>> Yes.

>> All right. Uh and of course if people do want to read uh that story from Charlie uh back uh from last year you said uh we are going to put a link in the show notes. And as always if you'd like to ask about content on the on poly podcast you can email us at onp politics@tvo.org.

That is the OnPy podcast for this Friday, November 28th, 2025.

>> You can follow our show wherever you get your podcast so that you get notified each time a new episode is available. And you can see the video version of the podcast on the TVOT Today YouTube channel.

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And be sure to include your first name, last name, and where you're located.

>> This week's episode was produced and edited by Matthew Omara. Video editing by Colin Kish.

>> Production support from Jonathan Howell and TVO's digital media services team.

>> Lorie F is TVO's executive producer of digital. John Ferry is vice president programming and content.

>> And thanks as always to our wonderful crew for uh putting the whole set together and making us look great. And uh until next Friday everybody. Bye-bye.

>> Bye-bye.

>> Hi there. My name is John Michael McGrath and I'm a podcast host and writer here at TVO. I focus on provincial politics explaining to our audience what is happening at Queens Park. From education, policy and healthcare to transit and housing and yes, even bike lanes. Here at TV, we believe that democracy requires an educated, engaged citizen. And one way we help build that is by supporting quality journalism. Your donations help make that possible, and we're grateful. doing.