Niagara spa, casino company among those getting Skills Development Fund grants, drawing complaints from unions

Striking college workers held demonstrations calling it a provincial day of action.

Striking college workers held rallies in a dozen locations across Ontario on Friday, calling it a provincial day of action to spur a settlement in the week-old job action, as more information emerged about government grants that have gone to career training at a company that operates a casino, spa, and a network of hotels.

Workers at several of those rallies carried signs referencing the province’s $2.5 billion Skills Development Fund (SDF), reiterating their concern that millions in taxpayer money were going to apparently well-connected companies instead of a college network facing thousands of job losses.

“As a college faculty member, we know we have incredibly high standards that our programs are held to, as well as public oversight and regular review,” said Darcie Hillier of OPSEU Local 242 at Niagara College.

“The [Skills Development Fund] programs seem to be operating almost exclusively in the dark as opposed to our public colleges, where program standards are public,” Hillier said.

Ontario’s premier and labour minister have defended the fund, telling reporters at an event on Wednesday that the SDF is money well spent.

“This is the best investment we’ve ever done in the province. We’ve trained over 700,000 people with multiple skills and given them the tools, literally the tools to have a career and the trade over the rest of our lives,” Ford said.

Niagara College has cancelled three hospitality courses, among hundreds that are on the chopping block in colleges across the province, as the sudden loss of many international students is eating into the colleges’ bottom lines.

Meanwhile, government records show that Canadian Niagara Hotels Inc., which operates a spa, waterpark, casino and a network of hotels nearby, has received four grants from the Skills Development Fund.

One in June 2025 is for $989,375 to train 500 participants in “foundational hospitality skills.”

Another announcement points to about $3.5 million in 2022 to “offer workers in Niagara and across the province with training and educational programs needed to pursue in-demand and well-paying jobs,” but it doesn’t specify how many people are being trained.

CTV News couldn’t find an announcement detailing the money for the other two grants, and ministry staff didn’t clarify the figures on Friday. The province’s public accounts contain payments from the Ministry of Labour for $2.49 million in 2023 and $2.02 million in 2024.

If those figures relate to Skills Development Fund money, Canadian Niagara Hotels would have received some $9 million from the fund since the program began.

Canadian Niagara Hotels didn’t clarify that in questions from CTV News, except to say that they did not use the same lobbyist as another grant recipient, Scale Hospitality.

Canadian Niagara Hotels’ CEO, Dino DiCienzo, is listed in Elections Ontario records as giving about $7,000 to the governing PC party from 2019 to 2022.

The same records show the restaurateurs associated with Scale Hospitality gave about $11,000 to the PCs.

CTV News previously reported that Scale Hospitality got a pair of grants worth $11 million to train some 5,200 at-risk people to work in its restaurant chain. One of the former staffers who worked on the application and then went on to become the company’s lobbyist was Amin Massoudi.

It also heard one of the former staffers in Premier Doug Ford’s office who worked on that application in 2021 was Amin Massoudi, who allegedly got massages in a Las Vegas spa at the same time as developers eyeing the province’s protected Greenbelt.

Massoudi told CTV News his actions were “appropriately registered and fully compliant.”

Labour Minister David Piccini said at that same event on Wednesday that Scale Hospitality overshot how many workers it was required to train.

“What I would say on this particular fund is that they met all their metrics. In fact, they exceeded it,” he said. “It’s about empowering workers with better training. We believe that everyone in Ontario, whether you’re in hospitality, whether you’re in construction, or whether you’re working in the Ag sector, you should have access to skills training.”

Complaints by OPSEU about those grants triggered a fissure in the Ontario Federation of Labour when LiUNA left, with its head Joseph Mancinelli saying the comments amounted to nothing but “bad politics attacking the Ford government.”

LiUNA was promised $26 million for a new training centre in Vaughan through the SDF.

Ontario’s Auditor General is auditing the Skills Development Fund.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Piccini said on Friday that the Skills Development Fund changes lives.

“To date, the SDF has supported 533 unique organizations, aiming to train over 52,000 health care workers, 154,000 construction workers, and 124,000 manufacturing workers, with the goal of training over one million workers,” the statement said.