FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
9 January 2026
OTTAWA, ON. – Today, MPP John Fraser, Ontario Liberal Parliamentary Leader, issued the following statement regarding Premier Doug Ford’s lawsuit against Keel Digital Solutions:
This is further evidence that Doug Ford’s government is engaged in a cover-up.
The timing is not accidental. On a Friday afternoon, the government announces it is suing a company already under investigation by the OPP, one that it gave money to after it was flagged for a forensic audit because the Minister of Labour intervened on behalf of his personal friend. This legal action appears designed to distract from the deeper and far more troubling problems at the heart of the Skills Development Fund.
Ontarians should ask why this government is suddenly eager to recover money now, when it showed no such urgency in the past. When Sayan Navaratnam, CEO of Facedrive, misled the government during the pandemic, there was no lawsuit, no clear effort to claw back previously distributed public funds. Instead, that same individual’s company later received additional money from the Skills Development Fund—even after he was sanctioned by the Ontario Securities Commission for misleading investors.
The reality is this: the Skills Development Fund has become a vehicle for rewarding well-connected insiders. We know public money went to the Ford family dentist, to executives who misled the government, to the owner of a strip club, and to well-connected Tory lobbyists. These decisions were not based on merit but connections alone.
Doug Ford now wants Ontarians to believe his government was swindled. They were not swindled. They were caught.
This raises a fundamental question: how does the Minister of Labour still have his job, and why does the Premier continue to defend him?
The entire Skills Development Fund must be investigated—not just one company, and not just one transaction. The rot is too deep, the pattern too clear, and the stakes too high. Ontarians deserve a full, independent investigation to get to the bottom of how hundreds of millions of dollars were handed out, and to whom—and why.