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TheTrillium.ca@thetrillium.bsky.social · 2w ago

What happened to $3.3M from the Skills Development Fund? Defendant says he gave it away

What happened to $3.3M from the Skills Development Fund? Defendant says he gave it away

The Ford government has taken the former director of a Toronto non-profit to court, demanding the repayment of $3.3 million from the Skills Development Fund. Yonis Hassan is mounting a Robin Hood-esque defence: he says his organization, the Justice Fund, took the millions the government granted it for job training programming and gave it to groups that serve marginalized communities. Whether that counts as “unjust enrichment,” and whether it’s true, are matters before the courts. “Even me, as a taxpayer, the province giving out three-and-a-half million dollars, and then not knowing where it went, that's a problem for me.” -Rohan Haté, lawyer for Yonis Hassan In documents filed in Superior Court, Hassan lists 49 organizations — including some well-known and respected community organizations and others with little-to-no public profile, plus a handful of private companies — that he says were supported by the Justice Fund. He claims his organization gave the “majority” of them the Skills Development Fund money it had agreed to use to train marginalized youth for jobs in creative industries — but he doesn’t specify which ones. “The Defendant, Hassan, states, and the fact is, that every dollar that was received by Justice Fund Toronto through SDF Funds was distributed throughout these various community organizations and initiatives,” he claims in his defence. That has not been proven in court, nor have the province’s claims that Hassan and the Justice Fund breached their contract with the government and were unjustly enriched by the SDF grant. When The Trillium attempted to contact each of the 49 organizations listed by Hassan, none said they received Skills Development Fund money from the Justice Fund. Some said they received nothing from the non-profit organization; some said they participated in activities with it or received donations — such as 100 pairs of shoes — with no clear connection to the SDF. Many others did not answer, declined to comment, or have shut down. Hassan is currently gathering evidence to show which groups got what money, according to his lawyer, Rohan Haté. “Once the evidence comes out and there's answers to these things, it's going to be clear, from his perspective at least, that there was nothing nefarious that took place,” Haté told The Trillium. “He's going to have answers for where the money went, where things were transferred to, and he's going to want an apology, I think, from you and from the province, at least, if and when this case plays out to his favour.” Hassan has also filed a counterclaim against the province for $3 million, alleging defamation, slander, libel, emotional distress, economic losses and loss of professional opportunities, plus punitive damages. Hassan blames any loss the province may have suffered on its own management of the Skills Development Fund, which has become a major controversy for the Ford government since The Trillium and other news outlets have reported on the close connections between groups that have received millions in job training funds and members of the Ford government and Progressive Conservative party. The issue of the province’s accountability for problems with the SDF will be played out in court, and not through the media, said Haté. “Even me, as a taxpayer, the province giving out three-and-a-half million dollars, and then not knowing where it went, that's a problem for me,” he added. Hassan also alleges he is being singled out because of his race. “The Skills Development Fund program involved numerous recipient organizations across the province, many of whom faced similar operational challenges in implementing new workforce development initiatives during the relevant period,” his counterclaim says. “The Plaintiff has singled out the Defendant, Hassan, a visible minority and black Canadian, while failing to apply the same investigative, enforcement, or repayment measures to similarly situated recipients.” The two sides are expected to meet in court in October at a hearing concerning the province’s demand for more details concerning Hassan’s counterclaim. Where’d the money go? Many of the organizations Hassan listed as possible recipients of the funding didn’t respond to The Trillium’s questions about whether they received Skills Development Fund money from the Justice Fund. Others appear to have closed, and some names on the list had no public profile. Some of those that did respond said they received no funding from the Justice Fund, including Toronto Community Housing and the BlackNorth Initiative. “I really wish we did,” said Richard Miller, the founder of Keep6ix, a non-profit that does the kind of work the Justice Fund’s grant was for, when reached by phone. Keep6ix began training people from marginalized communities in the skilled trades shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, and works with the Peel Regional Police Service and skilled trade union locals. It hasn’t managed to get provincial funding, and sometimes Miller will pay for someone’s training out of pocket, he said. The non-profit had some interactions with the Justice Fund before it got SDF funding in 2023 — it sent kids to a camp the Justice Fund ran in collaboration with the Tim Hortons Foundation, and it also received 100 pairs of donated Nike shoes that it gave to young people in its basketball program. “As a matter of fact, I am right now in Collins Bay Institution,” Miller said, referring to the federal correctional facility in Kingston, where he was to assist with someone’s reintegration through the trades, “and I wish we had something to support individuals.” Other organizations received funding from the Justice Fund around the time it received the SDF grant in March 2023, but said they didn’t know if it came from the Skills Development Fund. The non-profit had also received private philanthropic funding, records show. The Walrus, a Canadian magazine, received funding for its Justice Fund Writing Residency for Emerging Black Journalists, a program that began in 2021, said Executive Director Jennifer Hollett. If SDF funds were used to pay for its second writer residency, which was announced the month after the Justice Fund received its SDF funding, The Walrus was unaware of that. People’s Elite co-founder Duane Spencer said his organization got funding for its third Peace and Unity in the Community event, but he wasn’t aware of where it came from beyond the Justice Fund itself. A spokesperson for York University said the school received a $100,000 gift from the Justice Fund in May 2023 to support 14 student tuition bursaries, but added the provincial government “was not a party to the gift agreement.” Three of the names on the list appear to be corporations directed by Karim Rahemtulla, including Bulwark Impact, which advertises strategy, communications and grant-writing services on its website. Rahemtulla worked on the Justice Fund’s SDF project and met with Ministry of Labour inspectors as the province’s concerns about it began to grow, court documents show. Through his lawyer, Hassan declined to say at this time if those corporations received SDF funding, and Rahemtulla, when reached by phone, said he was in a meeting and would call back. The Trillium has not been able to reach him since. Crestview Strategy, a public affairs agency that worked on the Justice Fund’s launch event, was also on the list. The “OVO Social Justice Summit” was held in August 2023 in downtown Toronto and featured musical performances and fireside chats with the mayor of Toronto and a vice-president of the Raptors. The non-profit touted partnerships with record label 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 Justice Fund. No response from the Labour minister A spokesperson for Labour Minister David Piccini did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Monte McNaughton, who was labour minister when the Justice Fund received its SDF funding in 2023. Piccini has announced changes to strengthen the SDF, including tracking longer-term employment outcomes, requiring applications to disclose the use of registered lobbyists and consultants and more rigorous project screening. The SDF is in its sixth round of training stream funding, and it’s not clear if the changes would prevent the problems that occurred with the Justice Fund from happening again. A scathing auditor general’s report on the SDF included details of an unnamed recipient that appears to have been the Justice Fund. It illustrated a problem she focused on: the labour minister's office choosing to fund groups whose applications were scored "low" or “medium” by civil servants rather than those scored "high," with little rationale. Shelley Spence described how the minister's office decided to grant $4 million to a group despite civil servants' warnings that its application presented "significant risks," suggesting that it could be unable to meet its obligations, which it subsequently failed to meet. Civil servants had scored the project’s application “low” at 47 per cent because the organization had been active for only three years with no governing board, had no experience managing public money and the accompanying data collection, limited experience delivering employment programming, and presented an inflated budget with no quotes provided for capital expenditures, the report said. “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.”

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