An Open Letter to the People of Ontario From Doug Ford’s Personal Piggy Bank over his Ontario Skills Development Fund Scandal that’s almost too brazen to be believed

Millions in Skills Development Fund grants went to Ontario PC donors, fueling claims it’s a ‘slush fund’

In relation to this opinion piece by The Star,

Doug Ford’s latest scandal is almost too brazen to be believed

The Ontario Skills Development Fund— one of Ford’s signature programs and now perhaps the biggest scandal to hit his government since the Greenbelt — is rotten to the core.

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It was the ministers themselves, and their political staff, who selected the winners.

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Multiple media organizations — including the Trillium and CTV — analyzed the data, they found that clients who had hired lobbyists with intimate ties to Ford himself had done particularly well in securing funds.

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Clients of Rubicon Strategy, owned by Ford’s most important electoral advisor, Kory Teneycke, received more than $100 million, according to the Trillium. Clients of Atlas Strategic Advisors, owned by longtime Ford confidante Amin Massoudi, pulled in more than $20 million, the same outlet reported. One organization, Keel Digital Solutions, hired Piccini’s close friend Michael Rudderham to lobby on its behalf. The government gave Keel more than $4 million, Welsh and Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Robert Benzie reported Monday, despite concerns flagged by a bureaucrat that the company might use the money to buy its own software. (The government recently forwarded the results of an unrelated audit of Keel to the OPP).

In October, Piccini attended Rudderham’s wedding at the Four Seasons in Paris.

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It suggests Ford has established what amounts to a modern-day spoils system in his government, where public money is being handed out not based on need or merit but on who you know or who you pay.

Majority of Ontarians say Labour Minister Piccini should resign over skills development fund scandal: poll

Dream on… Not when his boss Doug Ford has a boatload of corruption scandals to his credit. Well, he was even a drug dealer to begin with — His schoolmate said so.

That said,

An Open Letter to the People of Ontario From Doug Ford’s Personal Piggy Bank

Hello, Suckers.

By Eddie Hardie 🍁 Social Integrity Activist

It’s me, your humble Premier. Well, not me me. It’s the sentient, weeping spirit of your tax dollars, currently being converted into gold leaf for the trim on my new custom-built hot tub at the family cottage. I have to say, this gig is even easier than I thought, and I thought it would be pretty fucking easy.

You’ve probably heard about my latest little “oopsie”—the $8.28 BILLION Greenbelt land swap scandal. I know, I know, the number is so big it seems made up. But it’s real! It’s the kind of bold, visionary corruption that would make a Third World dictator blush with professional envy.

The report from the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner was a real page-turner. They found that my team specifically hand-picked 14 of the 15 sites removed from the protected Greenbelt, showering a small group of well-connected developers—who just happened to be frequent guests at my daughter’s stag-and-doe party—with a staggering $8.3 billion windfall.

Let me be clear: this was not a scandal. This was a masterclass in efficiency. Why go through tedious, public processes when you can just hand over protected public land to your buddies like it’s a platter of cold cuts? The people wanted housing; my developer friends wanted money. I simply connected the dots, with a line made of pure, unadulterated greed. You’re welcome.

Auditor General’s Report on Greenbelt Land Removal (Read it and weep, literally)

The sheer, ballsy, brazen nature of it is almost beautiful. It’s like I’m not even trying to hide it anymore. I’m like a magician who announces, “I will now steal your wallet,” and then you applaud me for my transparency while I use your credit card to book a vacation in the Bahamas.

And the best part? The absolute, mind-meltingly beautiful part? You keep voting for me.

I have to tip my hat to the loyal legions of Ontarians—let’s call you my “useful idiots”—who see this mountain of evidence, this avalanche of betrayal, and shrug. “Well, at least he’s not one of them fancy-pants downtown elites,” you say, while I literally sell the ground beneath your feet to the actual elites. The cognitive dissonance is so loud I can hear it over the sound of my money counter.

You feel betrayed by “the media” for reporting facts, but not by me for treating your province as my personal fucking ATM. You get upset about “woke culture,” but not about the fact I’m carving up the environment your grandchildren will inherit. It’s hilarious! You’re so busy fighting culture wars, you don’t notice I’m pilfering the entire treasury.

Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane, shall we? The Greenbelt wasn’t my first rodeo. It was just my most profitable.

• Buck-a-Beer: A cynical marketing ploy that was as real as a three-dollar bill. Brewers called it “unrealistic,” but you lapped it up like thirsty dogs. The distraction cost you nothing, while I was working on schemes that would cost you billions.

• The License Plate Fiasco: Remember when we made plates so defective they were literally unreadable? A perfect metaphor for my government: shiny on the surface, completely illegible and dysfunctional underneath.

• The “Folksy” Persona: The whole “man of the people” shtick. I’m a multi-millionaire from a family that got rich selling fucking stickers to the government. My late brother Rob was a crack-smoking mayor. We are the original political crime family, and you treat us like beloved, bumbling uncles.

Doug Ford’s developer ties and the $8.3 billion question (The Toronto Star’s coverage)

It’s scary. It’s absurd. It’s so blatantly corrupt it feels like a plotline from a bad TV show. But this is your reality. I have dismantled environmental protections, eroded our healthcare system, and funneled public wealth into private hands with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And what’s my punishment? A slight dip in the polls before you inevitably forget and pull the lever for me again because the other guy “seems smug.”

So, to every single person in Ontario who feels a deep, simmering resentment about the state of things: I’m not the source of your problems. I’m just the guy exploiting them. Your short memory and your susceptibility to simple slogans are the real engines of this plunder.

Keep getting upset about the wrong things. It makes my job so much easier.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a brunch with some land developers. The menu? Golden goose, served on a plate of your naive trust.

Yours in Profitable Public Service,

Doug Ford (Metaphorically Speaking)

P.S. Don’t forget to vote for me next time. My hot tub could use a waterfall.