TORONTO — National Bank of Canada has asked the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to put Keel Digital Solutions, its subsidiary Get A-Head and a related US company, Amerimind AI, into receivership over more than $4.5 million in unpaid loans and credit accounts. The bank says payments stopped last March. If a judge agrees, control would leave the current executives and pass to a court-appointed receiver — the bank has named BDO Canada Limited — whose job is to lock down assets and try to repay creditors. Lawyers for National Bank also say the companies shifted banking to TD Bank, leaving it “no visibility” into operations, and that they have stopped carrying on a substantial part of the business.None of those claims have been proven in court.Keel ran an artificial-intelligence counselling platform for students and first responders. It received about $7.5 million from the $2.5-billion Skills Development Fund, the labour-ministry program Auditor General Shelley Spence found was not fair, transparent or accountable.Civil servants scored a Keel application 59 out of 100 — a low mark — and the minister’s office still approved the grant. One of the company’s lobbyists was reported to be a close friend of then-labour minister David Piccini.Premier Doug Ford moved Piccini to infrastructure on Sept. 10. Piccini remains under an integrity-commissioner investigation tied to the fund..Ford shuffles cabinet, moves Piccini off skills fund into infrastructure.In January the province sued Keel, Get A-Head and five executives, including CEO Rob Godfrey, seeking about $25.7 million. That claim is not the bank’s case. It alleges false quarterly reports on a student mental-health contract with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, including a year in which the company claimed 42,556 eligible sessions when the Crown later counted 3,529 unique sessions of any length. The government also alleges expenses were dressed up as eligible project costs.Keel has denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim seeking close to $100 million, saying the audit was flawed and that Queen’s Park used the firm as a scapegoat for the Skills Development Fund fight. The Ontario Provincial Police have reviewed the file after a forensic audit was sent to them.
