As questions about Ontario’s Skills Development Fund continues to hammer the provincial government, the Quinte Economic Development Commission is letting it be known the subsequent success for the Elevate Plus program from the fund.
At its meeting at the Bay of Quinte Business Development Centre on Thursday, the commission outlined in their activity report that the third cohort of the fifth round of Skills Development Funding is underway from November 17 to December 12.
It was also noted that the commission had submitted an application for Round 6 of the Skills Development Fund, scheduled for the March 31, 2026 to March 30, 2027 time period.
Mike Hewitt, coordinator with the Manufacturing Resource Centre, also spoke about the success of the program since its inception in 2013.
He says since the creation of Elevate Plus, 400 job seekers were able to transition into employment through 49 cohorts, with seven more currently in training.
“So when people ask what the impact of this program is, it’s huge, that transition of 400 people into employment,” Hewitt told the commission.
“We have stats from the original 25 cohorts of when we were required to track stuff after a year, and after a year, we had about 75% of people that were still retaining full-time employment, part-time employment, back in school, owning a business, etc.”
Ontario Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development and MPP for Northumberland – Peterborough South David Piccini has come under sustained fire from opposition parties since an auditor general’s report found his office had been heavily involved in selecting projects under the $2.5-billion Skills Development Fund and has doled out money to applicants ranked low by bureaucrats.
Premier Doug Ford recently defended his government’s skills development funding system.
Ford says that while the bureaucrats who assign rankings to skills development applicants do a great job, they are
not “in the field” to talk to frontline workers and see the training projects, and he is continuing to support Piccini.
With files from the Canadian Press
