The Ontario government has initiated a lawsuit against a company it hired to manage a student mental health program, claiming fraudulent misrepresentation and aiming to recover over $25 million in taxpayer funds.
Ontario asserts that Keel Digital Solutions, via its subsidiary Get A-Head Inc., exaggerated the number of counselling sessions it reported providing to students, leading to overpayments amounting to millions. The company strongly disputes these allegations.
From 2022 to 2025, the company “provided false and misleading quarterly reports of their corporate performance measures,” which were the basis for its payments, according to the government’s lawsuit.
“The false reports caused the Crown to pay the corporate defendants millions of dollars that they otherwise would not have been paid,” stated the claim filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Wednesday.
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The company announced plans to file a counterclaim.
“The government’s lawsuit against Keel Digital Solutions is deeply flawed, built on misstatements and outright inaccuracies,” chief operating officer Jay Fischbach said in a statement on Friday.
“Keel Digital has never been involved in any fraudulent activity, and we fully expect the government of Ontario to retract its claims, apologize, and take responsibility for the recklessness and malice that led to this case.”
Keel Digital Solutions faced intense scrutiny during last fall’s legislative session as one of the recipients of funding from the Ministry of Labour’s $2.5-billion Skills Development Fund-a program criticized by auditors for lacking fairness or transparency and awarding money based on low bureaucratic rankings.
Labour Minister David Piccini was under continuous pressure from opposition parties demanding his resignation after media revealed that one of Keel’s lobbyists is a close associate of Piccini’s.
This scrutiny intensified after news surfaced that an audit regarding Keel’s funding from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities had been referred by the government to the Ontario Provincial Police due to concerns dating back as far as 2023.
Critics questioned why Keel received $7.5 million in skills development funding for a first responder mental health program despite an audit raising issues about their student funding within another ministry.
Piccini indicated that Keel Digital Solutions was among those applicants who bureaucrats rated poorly but still chose for funding. He defended this approach by saying such decisions align with governmental priorities.
The Ontario Provincial Police announced last month they had begun investigating Keel’s student mental health funding situation.
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Liberal parliamentary leader John Fraser commented that this legal action seems self-serving since police are already handling this issue.
“This legal action appears designed to distract from deeper and much more concerning problems related to the Skills Development Fund,” he noted in a statement.
“Doug Ford now wants Ontarians to believe his government was duped. They were not duped; they were caught.”
In its lawsuit, Ontario claims that Get A-Head submitted estimated expenses instead of actual costs while failing to report unspent funds or interest accrued. It also allegedly overstated metrics tied directly to its funding.
Get A-Head purportedly counted counselling sessions provided outside students along with training mock sessions as legitimate student mental health sessions. Additionally, it is claimed that time logged by a counsellor, supervisor, and student during one session was reported as three separate sessions.
The government’s lawsuit states: “(The company’s) 2022-2023 final report claimed 42,556 eligible sessions between March 31, 2022 and March 30, 2023.”“The Crown has learned there were only actually 3,529 unique sessions during that timeframe.” Source link
Get A-Head purportedly counted counselling sessions provided outside students along with training mock sessions as legitimate student mental health sessions. Additionally, it is claimed that time logged by a counsellor, supervisor, and student during one session was reported as three separate sessions.
The government’s lawsuit states: “(The company’s) 2022-2023 final report claimed 42,556 eligible sessions between March 31, 2022 and March 30, 2023.”“The Crown has learned there were only actually 3,529 unique sessions during that timeframe.” Source link
