Groups that got cash from Ontario training fund increasingly hired lobbyists, numbers show

Organizations that won millions of dollars in grants from an Ontario worker training program at the centre of a political storm have increasingly hired professional lobbyists over the past five years, including several government-relations firms with close ties to Premier Doug Ford.

According to an analysis by The Globe and Mail, the proportion of companies, unions and other groups that received cash from the Skills Development Fund and hired lobbyists shot up 60 per cent since the program was launched in 2021.