By Allison Jones

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford is defending his government’s skills development funding system that allows a minister to hand-pick recipients against the advice of bureaucrats, even after referring an audit of one company to the police.

Labour Minister David Piccini has come under sustained fire from opposition parties calling for his resignation since an auditor general’s report found his office has 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 without documenting why.

One such recipient, Keel Digital Solutions, is being closely scrutinized as media reports say one of its lobbyists is a close

friend of Piccini’s.

Now, the government says it has asked the

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