PCs keeping reports about future of Peel’s regional government secret

The PC government continues to evade demands from Region of Peel senior staff and elected officials, along with local union representatives, who have requested full transparency on the recommendations that have informed changes to the regional government’s structure. 

The latest step in Premier Doug Ford’s efforts to overhaul Peel’s regional government saw Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra introduce legislation in December providing long-awaited details of what Peel’s governance system will look like going forward. The brief glimpse—made in the final sitting of the legislature before a two-month break— came almost exactly a year after Ford and Calandra went back on a commitment for a full dissolution of the region, a promise the Premier made to the late Hazel McCallion, before breaking it after she passed away in 2023. 

Since the walk-back, the PCs have failed to provide any rationale for the decisions made over the last year-and-a-half regarding the future of Peel. The provincial government has indicated that changes will be made to transfer responsibility for waste management, regional roads, planning and water/stormwater utilities to Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon (different arrangements could be made for each lower-tier municipality). 

The Province has not confirmed whether any of the reports or studies used by the now disbanded Transition Board to inform these decisions will be made public. The Minister’s office continues to avoid any direct response. 

“The Premier and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing provided the Mayors of all three impacted municipalities with a detailed breakdown of the proposal ahead of the official announcement,” Minister Calandra’s press secretary Emma Testani wrote in an email to The Pointer on Tuesday, but did not confirm whether any reports will be available publicly. It remains unclear how the Province arrived at its decisions, which have been handled behind closed doors, or what studies were used to inform the proposed changes. 

The lack of transparency, which has created widespread anxiety among staff at the Region, has been a key issue raised by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), particularly CUPE Local 966, which represents 3,500 employees of Peel Region.

“This entire process, from the beginning, has been shrouded in this complete lack of information, secrecy, and all of it causes a lot of stress and worry and concern for the many locals who operate in the Peel Region, but also for the residents, because we're talking here about the services that they rely on,” CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn told The Pointer. 

“There was never any rationale for this to happen.”

CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn stands alongside CUPE workers and elected officials in front of the Region of Peel headquarters.

(Submitted) 

Using justification that the proposed legislation will “strengthen municipal governance and accountability” and give Peel’s three lower-tier municipalities “the tools they need to provide high-quality services to local taxpayers as these municipalities continue to grow”, the changes tabled include transferring jurisdiction and responsibility for regional roads and associated stormwater infrastructure to Peel’s lower-tiers. Waste collection services and two community recycling centres in Mississauga will also be passed down to the municipality from the Region. These changes will be implemented by July 2026, or as determined by the Minister. 

Any approval of the legislation has been put on hold until at least March when the Ontario legislature resumes. 

In a January 9th report, Region of Peel staff criticized the lack of information provided to them around the decision to download these services.

“Nobody at the Region of Peel has seen any financial or labour projections made by the Transition Board, which presumably have driven the legislation,” the report states. “It would not just be informative to the taxpayers of Brampton, Caledon and Mississauga to understand the estimated impact of these changes to their future property tax rates, but also to those tasked with implementation to allow them to understand the assumptions made.”

The report highlighted several unanswered questions from the Region, including the uncertainty around the future of the governance structure; job security for regional employees and how any staff, capital projects or costs will be transferred to the lower tiers without significant disruption.

“It's enormously frustrating because it doesn't even allow for a public debate about whether things need to change, or what kind of change might be necessary,” Hahn said. “We don't know what the board has recommended. We don't know what the ministry is doing with those recommendations. We just don't know. That is unacceptable in a modern democracy.”

This is not the first time reports on Peel’s break-up have been kept hushed. Ahead of the Province flip-flopping on its decision to reverse a full dissolution of the region, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown made unsubstantiated claims, which were later repeated by Premier Doug Ford, about the costs of splitting up the upper-tier government, continuously referencing an “updated” Deloitte report from 2019. That consultant’s report was discredited after a freedom of information investigation by The Pointer exposed interference by former senior Peel staff who directed Deloitte to create what was supposed to be a subjective analysis, but was no more than a justification by senior staff to save their own jobs. After Mississauga’s twelve members of regional council learned of how the report was orchestrated behind the scenes by senior staff, aided by Chair Nando Iannicca and Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, to undermine Mississauga’s position that the Region should be dissolved, they ordered another external analysis by a separate firm, which supported the position that dissolving the Region would save money for taxpayers. The senior staff responsible for the behind the scenes maneuvering, without informing council, were no longer with the Region shortly after. 

When Brown later made claims of an updated Deloitte report, which no one had seen and council never commissioned, he eventually pivoted and began claiming a new study by KPMG showed the negative financial impacts dissolution would have. He refused to share a copy of the document despite repeated requests from The Pointer and Mississauga officials, who referred to the work Brown claimed to have as a “phantom” report.

Despite never showing it to the public, Ford used Brown’s claims of a new report to justify walking back his decision to dismantle Peel Region, stating publicly that the Brampton Mayor had an analysis that showed keeping Peel intact would save taxpayers a sizable amount of money every year.

Staffing challenges have remained an ongoing issue for the Region throughout the restructuring process, with more than 5,000 full-time staff worried about their future.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files) 

The ratcheting up of political gamesmanship happened after Bonnie Crombie stepped down as mayor to seek the Ontario Liberal Leadership, as critics accused Ford of going back on his promise in order to punish Crombie, who pushed for Mississauga’s independence from Peel before becoming a direct threat to Ford’s hold on the premier’s seat. 

Meanwhile, staff at the Region have been on a rollercoaster as job security has been a critical point of contention throughout the saga to determine Peel’s future. While senior staff maintained a “business as usual” façade in the early stages of Peel’s reconfiguration, ongoing staffing challenges have made things difficult. 

Stuck in limbo for nearly two years, the more than 5,000 full-time staff employed by the upper-tier municipality have been faced with the reality that their jobs and the services they provide to residents are up in the air. Concerns over lower wages, loss of benefits and loss of employment have swirled.

“The last number of years have been challenging for Peel employees; the level of uncertainty has created a lot of anxiety and stress,” the recent staff report acknowledged. “We will continue to prioritize the psychological health and well-being of our people through an intentional, focused strategy, ensuring that the mental and physical health of our people are protected.”

The Region remains concerned the amount of disruption and uncertainty could have a ripple effect across the organization, forcing some employees to begin seeking work elsewhere to avoid any issues as a result of the transition process. 

“The retention of talent is critical. There is an elevated risk of losing key, highly experienced and professional staff,” the report warns. 

“We saw an exodus of people initially when it was a concern that the region would be dissolved,” Hahn said. “People went to find work somewhere else because they were so uncertain, and… Peel Region can ill afford to lose talent and commitment. We need these committed, experienced public sector workers to stay in their communities, working in their communities, committed to their communities, and when they feel like that government isn't committed to them it becomes a real challenge.”

Hundreds of Region of Peel employees, who cover frontline services from road maintenance to garbage collection, have left as a result of the ongoing uncertainty.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files) 

The Region has previously admitted staff vacancies have increased since the announcement of the dissolution. In July, CAO Gary Kent revealed the Region had lost about 400 staff — up from 200 vacancies reported in August 2023, just a few months after full dissolution was announced — or a combined 13,000 years of experience since the PCs first presented the idea of dissolving Peel. At the time, he explained that “some of that would be retirements and other life experiences, but there's no doubt that this has been a significant impact on retention for staff.”

A spokesperson confirmed to The Pointer on Wednesday that as of January 2, “Peel Region's vacancy rate is approximately 10 percent, which has remained consistent with monthly fluctuations over the past two years.” Since May 2023 when the dissolution of Peel was first announced, Peel Region has seen 583 staff departures. “Due to the dissolution, staff tenure has decreased by 2.64 years. As of today, our current average tenure is 11.8 years.”

“For the people who do those jobs, the level of uncertainty is enormously stressful and our members not only work in the region, but they live in the region and they care about how things are going to unfold. There is no one — not elected leaders of the region, certainly not folks from our union leaders of the local area — no one knows what's being planned.” There is no bigger issue in Peel, he said.

“The truth of the matter is that Peel Region is massively underserved when compared to other surrounding areas with the kind of population growth that is occurring in Peel Region. There's a real lack of support and funding that ought to be the focus. Instead, we're all dealing with this uncertainty, and again, our real concern is that this is an attempt under the shroud of secrecy, to privatize public service.” 

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish, who previously said the Province’s latest announcement about the downloading of some services was not what her city had “hoped for,” expressed her disappointment in a December 16 letter to Minister Calandra, stating that the proposed legislative changes are “unfairly keeping our city on the hook as the financial cash cow for the municipalities of Brampton and Caledon,” while also underscoring that no evidence has been provided to support the recommendations.

“Mississauga has been financially impacted by regional road budgets for many years. We’re told — without any data backing it — that Mississauga will save $500 million over ten years after July 1, 2026. The problem is the delay to 2026 will see our city continuing to subsidize the regional roads by $75 million for another 18 months. We then have to start subsidizing Caledon $25 million a year for ten years,” according to her letter. She also raised concerns around the financial burden placed on Mississauga taxpayers for water/wastewater infrastructure and the current cost sharing agreement with Brampton to fund Peel police’s unprecedented 23.3 percent budget increase, after she previously asked the Province to review the current police funding arrangement that sees Mississauga provide far more money than Brampton even though the two cities have roughly the same number of police calls. 

Calandra responded that, “Policing remains out of scope of the Region of Peel service transfers work.”

As part of the proposed legislative changes, the PCs also announced that as of December 31, the Transition Board appointed to oversee Peel’s reconfiguration (it was initially formed to dissolve the Regional government) would no longer be needed. Moving forward, the PCs have shifted the responsibility to Ontario’s Provincial Land and Development Facilitator, which “will work with the municipalities to facilitate the process for the service transfers, including the transfer of assets and liabilities, and other transitional matters.” The legislation will also provide the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing with the authority “to take future actions to support the service transfers”, if passed. 

The January 9th staff report from the Region cautioned that, “It is clear that the costs of [the Planning and Land Development Facilitator] will be met by the Province, but unclear who will bear the cost of the four municipalities, or what the estimated costs of implementation are.

“The full financial impacts of this transition are unknown at this time.” Staff remain committed to working with the land facilitator, the Province and the local municipalities “to understand the breadth and scale of the financial impacts to taxpayers” in the Region’s lower-tiers. In the meantime, “staff will continue to deliver services as approved through the budget, through previous approved Council reports and continue to review future investments and work plans.” 

In the meantime, Peel’s 2025 budget has been in limbo as Mississauga’s members seek clarity about how the future service decisions will impact the Region’s financial blueprint for the year. A budget meeting has been scheduled for January 23, after Mississauga’s regional councillors did not show up for the last budget meeting of 2024, due to the lack of direction at the time from the provincial government, which forced its cancellation. 

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock 

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