“Piccini must go”: new poll shows majority want Labour Minister fired for Skills Development Fund corruption

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New public opinion research reveals that a majority of Ontarians believe Labour Minister David Piccini should resign or be removed from Doug Ford’s cabinet because of the ongoing stream of scandals surrounding the government’s Skills Development Fund (SDF).

In an Abacus Data poll commissioned by CUPE Ontario, 52% of respondents think that Minister Piccini should quit or be fired for the misuse of SDF funds, first flagged in a scathing report by Ontario’s auditor general. Even 43% of past Ontario Progressive Conservative Party voters agree it’s time for Minister Piccini to leave cabinet, with only 19% of PC voters saying he should stay on.

“Calls for accountability are only growing louder,” said CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn. “Minister Piccini has used the Skills Development Fund – $2.5 billion of the public’s money – as a slush fund to benefit insider friends of the Ford Conservatives. It’s the latest corruption involving lobbyists from the Ford government and clearly the people of Ontario want the person in charge to be held responsible.

“The question is, does Doug Ford respect the people of this province enough to demand basic ministerial accountability from David Piccini, or has the premier learned nothing from the Greenbelt lobbyists’ scandal?”

Hahn cited a second finding from the poll: 46% of those surveyed believe this latest controversy indicates a broader problem with the Ford government and how it awards contracts and grants, while 23% said the scandal is mainly about Minister Piccini.

“The ‘circular economy’ of donations to the Ontario PC Party is sadly familiar,” remarked Hahn. “Parts of this latest funds-for-friends debacle are eerily reminiscent of the Chrétien Liberals’ sponsorship scandal, and that led to arrests by the RCMP, a federal election and a national public inquiry.”

The Abacus Data poll was taken after the public learned that the church in which another Conservative cabinet minister was married received a total of $2.8 million from the Ministry of Labour, including two SDF grants; but before it was revealed that Piccini’s own spouse lobbied for Career Colleges Ontario, two of whose members got millions from the SDF.

The survey was conducted online by Abacus Data for CUPE Ontario with 2,000 Ontario residents from October 24 to 29, 2025. The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 2.19%, 19 times out of 20.