Queen Street between Etobicoke Creek and Highway 410 is a low-rise, low-density, unappealing suburban thoroughfare that’s practically unwalkable. The city is steps away from zoning changes that could reshape this traffic-heavy major street into a denser, more livable and economy-stimulating city-centre.
The federal and provincial governments have both asked the region to provide temporary shelter for people fleeing their homes. It’s getting to be a regular thing, since Ottawa requested help in easing the strain on Toronto’s refugee services last year.
The Region of Peel says it will have to increase property taxes by more than 6 percent on its share of the bill next year to maintain current service levels, largely because of cuts being planned by Queen’s Park that will download many costs onto municipal property owners. In Brampton, which faces a growing infrastructure deficit at the local level, homeowners could be on the hook for a massive tax increase in 2020.
While Brampton council tries to figure out what to advocate for this fall, the bad blood between the federal and provincial governments over who’s hoarding infrastructure money meant for cities has come to a boil over layoffs at the Bombardier facility in Thunder Bay. The mud-slinging between the federal Liberals and Ontario PCs isn’t helping Brampton, which is still waiting to get transit money that’s already been budgeted for, but hasn’t materialized — with many more infrastructure needs on the growing wish list.
A review of city employee culture ostensibly being carried out by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion has sunk below Brampton Council’s radar since it was first instituted by the city’s moribund Inclusion and Equity Committee more than two years ago.
Brampton City Council’s meeting today will consider a list of priorities to bring before federal candidates as they come a-courting. Election campaigns are among the few times the city seems to come to the attention of the federal parties, with frequent visits the typical pattern as leaders compete for votes from the city’s cultural communities.
What’s decided today could help shape the future of the city’s relationship with the party that’s ultimately successful in forming the next Parliament.
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The shocking Jeffrey Epstein human trafficking case has grabbed the international spotlight, but sadly it’s the high-powered people close to the American billionaire driving much of the attention.
Those fighting the rapidly growing demand for the trafficking of women, many of them teenagers and younger, say the case shows just how far-reaching this devastating criminal activity has become.
The Ontario NDP Deputy Leader and Brampton MPP is dealing with a former party riding association president who has admitted his romantic feelings for her. Singh has had to file a formal harassment complaint and recently sent the man a cease and desist letter. It’s 2019, but many women in politics still have to put up with attitudes of privilege that continue to define a Mad Men world of male entitlement. But when Hurricane Hazel McCallion blew into town decades ago, she put men in that world on notice: don’t mess with this new force that’s only going to get stronger.
In a case that once again raises the spectre of developer influence over city hall, Peter Cipriano, founder of the Gold Park construction group, donated $10,800 in total to nine Brampton candidates last fall — more than double the legal limit. Brampton’s citizen-run Election Compliance Audit Committee, unswayed by Cipriano’s apology for what he called an honest mistake, decided to go ahead with legal action. Meanwhile, Nick Cortellucci, part of an influential developer family recently profiled in The Pointer, got a slap on the wrist for also violating the contribution limit.
Downtown Brampton has a notoriously high retail turnover rate, with a lack of parking and a challenging social environment as two reasons often mentioned. Table-top gaming shop and play venue Hobby Studio has been one island of stability more recently, but even with success, the owners are finding the surprisingly high rent for an area that needs a lot of improvement is constraining their room to grow.
New Education Minister Stephen Lecce was sent out by his masters to fix the PC party’s failing reputation ahead of this October’s federal election. But cheap tricks only remind Ontarians that Doug Ford is using the same Mike Harris playbook that got their party booted from leadership for more than 15 years.
Prevention may be as important as repairing the damage to curtail the impact of human trafficking in Peel. If we learn to employ strategies effectively and with a commitment like that shared by participants in the Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Trauma, public education and even mathematics may be able to help.
Changes to a Grade 10 mandatory course, including beefed-up components involving financial literacy and emerging careers, won’t do much to help students suffering the more immediate results of funding cuts and increased class sizes, say some educators.
The curriculum update announced this week by new Education Minister Stephen Lecce follows a series of major changes to Ontario’s education system that will result in fewer teachers, fewer support staff and fewer course options in schools across the province.
Financial literacy and steering students toward the jobs of the future are top goals as the revised Career Studies course, a required half-semester program for Grade 10 students in Brampton and across the province, rolls out this fall.
The new curriculum also reckons with the fact that many jobs are disappearing in the face of new technology and that students need to know how to pick a career path that won’t be taken over by robots. (Of course, they could build those robots.)
In February 2018, former Brampton Centre NDP Riding Association president Bruce Marshall was asked to leave Sara Singh’s campaign, apparently in response to allegations made by the candidate, who was later elected. In her complaint in spring 2018, a month before the election, and again in a recent letter written to Marshall this May, Singh alleged a pattern of inappropriate behaviour, including repeated unwanted advances, inappropriate touching and communication, and intrusive behaviour at public events.
Sex trafficking flourishes amid public apathy and a lack of supports to help women who escape find healing and a permanent path out of poverty and exploitation. There are solutions out there — and people passionately prepared to do the hard work — but they’ll need money and political commitment.
Minister Stephen Lecce’s pledge to listen to teachers’ concerns amid his call to speed up negotiations on new contracts for teachers seems a good sign, says local union president Gail Bannister-Clarke. But the leader of Peel’s public elementary teachers still wonders: are the governing PCs prepared to bargain in good faith?
Often lost in statistics, arrest reports and confusion about the nature of sex trafficking is the very real and human story of a level of violence and suffering – sexual, physical, psychological — that a seasoned researcher tells a packed conference room “has touched my heart so deeply.”
Mayor Patrick Brown was called out by Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon and on social media for his ‘PR’ move, highlighting criticism of Quebec’s Bill 21, banning religious symbols in civil service jobs. Is the mayor just using diversity as an easy way to score political points with future voters, while ignoring Brampton’s own problems with equity and inclusion?
The $100-million Symphony Condominium project on Queen Street will offer a variety of choices for residents and employers with its mixed-use makeup. The project strikes a chord with Mayor Patrick Brown who is looking to improve the city’s land-use mix and enrich its tax base. The groundbreaking also helped quiet the noise from a $28.5-million lawsuit that is still making its way through the Ontario court system.
A move to merge Peel Region’s public health unit with three others has regional councillors worried about whether the unique needs of this diverse region, with a population of 1.4 million, will continue to get the focus they deserve.
They’re petitioning the province to keep things as they are, at least in Peel.
As calls for ambulances race upward, a $4.9 million shortfall in Peel’s health budget following provincial cuts could mean longer waits for people in crisis and a reduced ability to deal with multiple emergencies.
Councillors met in camera on Wednesday to discuss details of the planned Hurontario light rail line as it enters Brampton, with a terminus at Steeles Avenue. Talks are happening with property owners along the city’s southern LRT corridor affected by the current project as it heads north from Mississauga into Brampton. But residents hoping the route will continue into downtown are still waiting for answers to key questions about the future of LRT in the city.
In a largely symbolic move, city council pledged Wednesday to support legal challenges to Quebec’s controversial Bill 21, which prohibits public servants from wearing religious symbols, and to advertise itself as a paragon of diversity by inviting visible minorities in Quebec to apply for jobs here.
But Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon burst the city’s self-congratulatory bubble with some sharp criticisms of Brampton’s degree of dedication to diversity and equity.
While the region has been spared the most devastating effects of a North American epidemic of opioid addiction, statistics suggest the situation isn’t improving.
There were 81 opioid-related deaths in 2017, and overdoses continue to strain the region’s emergency departments.
An executive search firm is helping with a Canada-wide search for a replacement for Jennifer Evans, who resigned in January after a troubled six-year term as chief. The decision on a new leader comes at a difficult time for Peel Region Police, with a rise in violent crime and a police force struggling to better reflect the diverse community it serves.
Police say they’ve spent a big chunk of money on officer training with very little to show for it from the funding promised to municipalities to ease the process of legalizing pot.
Some of the provincial money is helping to pay for a public awareness program and data gathering at the Region of Peel. Meanwhile, the existence of legal cannabis in Brampton doesn’t appear to be making even a dent in illicit dispensaries.
It’s a fact that escapes the notice of most Peel residents: the region is one of the top areas in Canada for the horrific and often lucrative crime of human sex trafficking.
A conference over the next two days will bring together experts to discuss how to rein in perpetrators and how to help women and girls heal from the devastation of human trafficking. Family Services of Peel wants this declared a public health crisis.
The province’s choice to go back to a discarded plan for a new highway from Vaughan to the 401, skirting Brampton, is a “1950s solution to a 2020 problem,” according to those concerned about the environmental impact.
The argument that it will ease traffic congestion in the GTA is undermined by a 2015 panel’s findings that the benefits of the project were overblown. But opponents will find they’re up against formidable forces in the development industry and a Doug Ford government determined to help them.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and other Peel Police Services Board members lashed out against Quebec’s Bill 21, which limits religious expression in public life, passing a motion Friday to encourage potential candidates from the neighbouring province to apply for jobs with Peel police.
But at the same meeting, they remained largely silent when a scathing diversity audit of their own police department was addressed.
The lessons learned from the recent Raptors NBA championship run can be applied to city building. Brampton needs to set a bold and independent course, to come up with a game plan that has a definitive goal of winning. The Raptors are champs because they recognized their shortcomings and changed course. It’s now Brampton’s turn.
Brampton city council voted Wednesday to delay rules that would require more people to get permits for changing the size and configuration of their driveways. Councillor Pat Fortini says fixing confusion about what people can and can’t do with driveways is his mission, after the new rules, which were supposed to take effect July 2, got a lot of “backlash.”
The giant Canadian real estate development and property management company has big plans for its Shoppers World complex at Main Street South and Steeles Avenue. The re-development of the 700,000 square foot shopping centre could become a modern mix-use community, in keeping with the city's plans under its aspirational 2040 Vision strategy.
City councillors unanimously adopted two age-related policies at their Wednesday meeting: a youth engagement strategy designed by two city interns, and a global policy to make city designs and policies more friendly towards senior citizens.
In a very young, but still aging city, those two things may not be as far apart as they seem.
Brampton has adopted new rates and policies for development charges, the fees builders pay to help construct roads, sewers, and the like.
Rates on houses and apartments are going up, but there’s one major exception — office buildings will be exempt from development charges.
A blueprint for creating new affordable housing stock, the plan approved Thursday by Peel Region’s Strategic Housing and Homelessness Committee foresees providing 5,364 new units by 2034.
This in a region struggling with a booming population, worsening affordability issues, and a years-long wait list. But it’s far from clear where the funding will come from for the ambitious eight-phase plan.
A GTA therapy and treatment provider for children, ErinoakKids, announced Monday that it will lay off 291 staff members due to provincial cuts to autism funding.
The Ford government’s controversial decision to upend the Ontario Autism Program and give payments to families rather than providers has had a direct effect on service, leaving wait-listed parents of autistic kids worried about where it’s all headed.
A key part of Ryerson University’s planned presence in Brampton has received the blessing of the federal government — and big business.
Minister Navdeep Bains announced last Friday that the Liberals will allocate $10 million to match funding by Rogers Communications, alongside contributions by the City and RBC of $5 million each, towards a research and development hub known as the Cybersecure Catalyst.
A large portion of the high school teachers and all of the elementary teachers declared “surplus to board” by the Peel District School Board earlier this year will be recalled for this fall.
However, it still leaves a large number stuck in precarious long-term occasional or day-to-day supply teaching.
A small gesture could make it easier for Brampton homeowners to register their illegal basement apartments. The city’s planning committee just voted to slash registration fees for secondary suites to $200 — from as much as $1,200.
The big question is whether the change will encourage more property owners to come clean and ensure the safety of their lower-income tenants.
Calls involving domestic disputes — between family members or intimate partners — are far and away the biggest reason people call police in Peel Region.
Solving the issues behind domestic violence, which cut across culture and class, in an incredibly diverse region, isn’t easy. But Family Services of Peel has some proactive ideas.
Preventing vulnerable people from getting the legal help they need isn’t just cruel; it’s “faulty math” that ends up costing everyone, leaders of Peel Region’s legal aid clinics told regional councillors on Thursday.
Emotional responses — and a motion to take action — followed their presentation.
City council is going on the offensive to break the gridlock in Brampton’s two hospitals. Mayor Patrick Brown and councillors announced a petition-campaign at the beginning of this year’s farmers’ market season, yesterday.
The petition will be taken directly to Queen’s Park to “make our pitch” for fair share funding to help Brampton’s dire healthcare situation, the mayor said.
If people don’t stop discarding single-use plastics used for little more than convenience, we can kiss our oceans, and our very way of life, goodbye.
A $700,000 cut to court services puts Peel Regional Police and the regional municipality between a rock and a hard place, as Acting Chief Chris McCord pointed out in an update to council Thursday.
Local police are required by law to transport prisoners to court, which means they’ll have to find the money somewhere if the province refuses to pony up.
Brampton City Council voted Wednesday to adopt the globally accepted principles of Vision Zero. The goal of the framework, which includes measures such as better street design that calms traffic and improves sightlines, is to reduce the number of pedestrian and cyclist road fatalities to zero. But Brampton, thanks to its car-centric planning, has a long way to go before realizing that dream.
Brampton staff say the province has not handed over money earmarked for transit. The city has been counting on some $350 million for crucial investments including new buses and other transit expansion.
Amarjot Sandhu’s move to build a controversial highway puts him in good company with Mayor Patrick Brown, who thinks the project would help Brampton’s economy.
The plan also promotes sprawl — encouraging policies that appear in Doug Ford’s developer-friendly Bill 108.
The “devastating” effects of the developer-friendly omnibus bill, as described by municipalities, did nothing to slow its passage through the Legislature last week.
Nor did critics’ doubts that it will do much to meet the stated aim of improving the supply, and lowering the cost, of housing in Ontario.
Now, Peel Region and Brampton are grappling with the significant impact of the bill’s sweeping changes to revenues and planning, many of which could mean rising property tax and utility rates for local residents.
A speech by a 15-year-old student from Brampton’s Harold M. Braithwaite Secondary School pleading for action moved councillors last week to declare a climate emergency in the city.
Shailly Prajapati’s environmental passion — part of a global youth movement — began at a city event exploring ways to put the Brampton 2040 Vision document into practice.
The Pointer talked to Prajapati about her ambition to organize high school students to help green Brampton this fall by planting thousands of trees.
