Six years into his tenure, Brampton’s revitalization remains paralyzed under Mayor Patrick Brown

When Patrick Brown secured victory on election night in 2018, he energized a crowd of hundreds eager to support a politician who had made big, bold promises to voters aching to see their beleaguered city turned around.

“I've got so much hope in my heart for what lies ahead for Brampton. You know why? I know we can turn this around," he said in his 2018 election night victory address.

"I know that Brampton is going to be back. Brampton is going to become an economic engine. Brampton is going to be the place where you want to be. I can tell you, Brampton is going to be the envy of Ontario again, the envy of Canada."

Before Brown’s arrival in Brampton, after allegations of sexual assault ended his provincial political career (he denies them) Susan Fennell had caused widespread reputational harm to the city as the former mayor was embroiled in spending scandals, a major lawsuit over the expansion of City Hall that exposed an administration plagued by poor leadership and questionable procurements that saw Brampton lose out on investments while surrounding municipalities thrived.  

In 2014, Linda Jeffrey inherited a divided council and major initiatives including a planned LRT suffered from the inability to bring members together.

Brown, a scorned politician, fresh off his own scandal that saw him ousted as leader of the Ontario PC Party, used ties to Brampton’s large South Asian community to revitalize his political career. He promised voters who salvaged his career that he would repay them by turning Brampton’s reputation around.

After more than six years, the city has little more than a string of empty promises from the career politician, and mounting questions about its finances. A string of budget freezes by Brown, who has dramatically increased his own spending on self-promoting costs such as social media expenses, staff hired to market the mayor and high-priced travel, has left city departments stretched thin. The transit system, for example, has been the subject of widespread criticism across the city for its poor service while complaints have mounted about the deterioration of public spaces under Brown’s leadership.

Tracy Pepe, a Brampton resident, business owner and community advocate who ran for a council seat in 2022, is concerned about the decline since Brown took office and the lack of accountability for his broken promises.

"The truth is, we're on the path of becoming Detroit," she said. "And I have said that to so many people: we are on the brink of bankruptcy within this community, and no one is ringing the bell, and no one is paying attention, and no one is taking this seriously. We are so broke in every department internally, and I have spoken to individuals across the city.”

City business has stalled, and major infrastructure projects, including Peel Memorial’s expansion, the LRT, a world-class cricket stadium, a new standalone university, an innovation centre and downtown revitalization, to name a few, have seen little progress. Brown repeatedly makes claims about securing funding and other commitments to bring promises to fruition but his own tax freezes and failure to prioritize the city have compromised its financial future. 

Council’s Referred Matters List, which tracks requests from council to staff and the progress made on the top priorities for the city, illustrates the lack of legislative activity under Brown to move the city forward. Following the announcement of U.S. tariffs, council requested staff report back on the potential creation of a “municipal services corporation to build relationships in new international markets and support the diversification of export markets for goods and services from Brampton”. This is a role for provincial and federal governments, and the public has not been told how the municipality would manage such a broad mandate or ensure accountability to taxpayers who expect direct benefits in return. No clarity or update has been provided since the proposal. 

Since Brown became mayor there has been a revolving door of staff members and those on council travelling around the world including the mayor’s frequent unexplained trips to India, with little ability for taxpayers to track and monitor any investments all the publicly funded trips have generated for Brampton. 

In a pattern that has become common under Brown’s leadership, the tracking of priorities has become increasingly difficult as items are removed from the list of priorities with no evidence they were ever completed. 

In January 2023, the Referred Matters List was 21 items long. Throughout the year the number began to tick upward, and by the end of 2023, it had swelled to 52. Throughout 2024, the size of the list remained relatively stagnant as staff treaded water and council continued to add to the list. It hovered between 50 and 60 items for the whole of 2024. As of May 28, the gridlock persists, with the list sitting at 52 items. 

Certain versions of the list under Brown have included priorities removed from the City’s website. A version of the list from the 2018-2022 Term of Council is still available, and when comparing this previous version to the current one, several items have been significantly delayed with little explanation of what is being done while others have been removed entirely. 

In the previous term of council, a “detailed, itemized report on the spending undertaken by the City with respect to the Brampton University file” was added to the list in March of 2022. There is no evidence this report was ever completed and yet it has been removed from the 2025 Referred Matters List.

Brown repeatedly promised updates on the world-class cricket stadium he promised in 2018, vowing it would be built by 2022. Ahead of that year’s municipal election, with no stadium in sight, reports were repeatedly promised, but taxpayers have yet to see any staff update on the status of the stadium, despite the promise of detailed reports. 

A similar pattern of promises and commitments to report publicly on the future plans for the redevelopment of the CAA Centre lands has unfolded, with hardly any available public information produced despite repeated claims by Brown and senior staff that work on the file is progressing. 

The City did not respond to a detailed list of questions from The Pointer about specific items on the Referred Matters List. 

The Brampton University scandal saw Brown and Councillor Rowena Santos exposed for handing more than $600,000 of taxpayer money to close friends and associates for the planning of a future university in the city that never materialized. Brown cancelled investigations into his alleged wrongdoing while he promised to deliver the project.

Mayor Patrick Brown and Councillor Rowena Santos. Friends and associates of theirs received hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for a university plan that never materialized.

(City of Brampton)

A standalone whistleblower policy was also recommended by council under Brown and was added to the Referred Matters List in May 2021. It no longer appears on the list, but Brampton still does not have a whistleblower policy to protect employees who wish to report wrongdoing they witness on the job. An update on the initiative was initially planned to come back to council in the third quarter of 2021, but the date was revised three times before it eventually disappeared. It remains unclear how much staff time and tax dollars were spent on the planned accountability policy before it was apparently cancelled. It’s another blow to public oversight of City Hall where, since Brown was elected, the Freedom of Information function has faltered, and the Internal Audit function has suffered leaving the City’s Corporate Fraud hotline understaffed. 

A “Request to establish a new position/office to address Indigenous and Urban Migrant Affairs” was slated to go to council in the second quarter of 2022, but The Pointer couldn’t find any document from the City that suggests this position or office was ever created. Yet the onetime priority no longer appears on the Referred Matters List. 

Revised timelines are a recurring theme with the Referred Matters List as City Staff are often unable to meet initial deadlines. 

One issue that has seen 12 changed or updated deadlines for reporting out to the public is the accountability policy around Brampton’s human resource practices, following complaints in 2021 of Councillor Rowena Santos bullying staff. Initiated in March the same year, the request was for staff to provide recommendations to council to strengthen the process for dealing with complaints against members of council, “including but not limited to specific reference to the IC (integrity commissioner) in HR policy”. A promised update to the City’s Respectful Workplace Policy, which was last revised in 2017, with no mention of the integrity commissioner in the policy, has still not been completed. 

A surplus land declaration at 7752 Churchville Road was proposed in September 2019 with a report to come back in December of that year. The deadline was changed nine times before Council declared the property surplus in September 2023—four years later. The proposed demolition of the Siemens Building at 2719 Bovaird Drive West was also added to the Referred Matters list in September 2019, to come back with a report from staff in December. The deadline was revised seven times before coming back in the second quarter of 2022. 

A partial list of delayed projects includes:

• A work plan to address lodging houses in Brampton; 10 revisions since March 2023—it was meant to come back in June of that year.
• An update on the proposed expansion of the Goreway Generating Station and its impacts on Brampton’s emission reduction targets; 18 revisions since June 2023—it was originally planned for September of that year.
• The start of a public consultation process on changes to the Sign Bylaw related to elections signs; 20 revisions since December 2022.
• An implementation strategy for a Brampton Youth Council has been pushed back 11 times since May 2023—it was meant to appear at the May 21, 2025 meeting, but there was no sign of it on the agenda and it has since been removed from the Referred Matters List for unknown reasons.
• A request for bylaw to review parking in bike lanes; has had its deadline revised 19 times since February of last year—it too was meant to go to the May 21st council meeting but now has a revised deadline of simply “Q2 2025”.

These items, while not as attractive as higher profile infrastructure projects often highlighted in press releases, are no less critical to city-building.

Pepe questions the current leadership under Brown, who has made clear that his priority is to get back to federal politics. He tried to help Peter MacKay win the Conservative Party leadership in 2021, using City Hall resources to sign members for him and then himself ran for the party’s leadership in 2022, criss-crossing the country, using City Hall staff without taking a leave while he was paid as mayor, before the Party disqualified him for alleged election finance violations.

Pepe questions the lack of accountability.

“It is the mismanagement of this entire council of our funds. The reserves are gone. I don't know where the money is going. That is what I have been dying to ask Patrick Brown: Where's the money?" she asks.

"I am sad because the constituents in my wards, the residents, my neighbours, they have no hope. I get text messages on a regular basis. I get phone calls. ‘Tracy, how can you help me? No one's listening to me at City Hall. I call 311. What can you do to help me?’ And I'm just a business owner. I live in Brampton. I'm helping. I'm trying my best, but I have no authority. I have no way of making things work faster, but I do know that it is not the city workers. I do know they would gladly do their job if they had the tools to do their job, but I do not know where the money is going."

She said there is “little to show” for the taxes property owners and local businesses pay.

The delays seen on the Referred Matters List are a symptom of a much larger problem in City Hall, she says, as promises are routinely broken with no consequences. 

Brown has repeatedly promised a “world class” cricket stadium that was supposed to be built by 2022. After that promise was broken, the latest updates were supposed to come forward in 2023. That did not happen, and residents across the city have seen nothing since. Brown promised downtown revitalization, but then cancelled an effort already underway after he was elected in 2018 and work has moved at a glacial pace since, with the original plan approved before he arrived in the city, dramatically scaled back since. There is still no clear idea of funding for the long promised rollout of the Riverwalk project and despite Brown’s misleading claims; the LRT extension into Brampton remains without funding. He promised he would get other levels of government to pay for it immediately after he was first elected.

Pepe says Brown is more concerned with his future political ambitions.

Prior to the recent federal election, his name surfaced in connection with work he was doing for Liberal leadership candidate Ruby Dhalla before she was disqualified for allegedly violating election rules.

Brown had actively worked to get his mother-in-law, Sylvia Gualtieri, elected as an MPP in Mississauga during the snap provincial election. The Pointer reported on his use of City Hall employees in the successful campaign. 

Mayor Patrick Brown (centre) alongside his mother-in-law Sylvia Gualtieri during her campaign to become a Mississauga MPP earlier this year. Brampton residents criticized Brown for taking an active role in her campaign while ignoring the needs of the city he is elected to serve. 

"Why is he involved? I mean, I can understand that she's your mother-in-law, but that doesn't mean that you should be out there campaigning for her," Myrna Adams, President of the Brampton Senior Citizen Council, says. "You're not supposed to be out there trying to get the members for her…That's not part of his job."

Like many others who have reached out to The Pointer, she questioned Brown’s commitment to Brampton.

“I do believe that his main concern should be the constituents of Brampton, those that he was elected to serve. The people of Brampton.”

She is concerned about the lack of transparency.

"I mean, he does behave as a dictator. There's no doubt about that. Because you're either with him or you're not, and it's all your fault, and you're an enemy. You can't disagree with him, or you become an automatic enemy."

Pepe highlighted Brown’s failure to deliver on a project he claimed was funded three years ago.

"Oh, I'm frustrated with the lack of transparency. The animal shelter had funding on the books for three years. They had paid money to start the design of the new expansion of the animal shelter that was going to be a wildlife conservation as well. And they were doing this and moving it to Heart Lake. They had, I think, 24 million (dollars) allocated in the budget. And they got emails, and I can show you the emails. They have emails that said the money was cancelled."

Pepe says Brown cancelled the project without explanation.

“It was using the mayor's power behind closed doors, and there was no conversation. And the staff is devastated because that animal shelter is now refusing to surrender dogs and cats up to nine months–they have a waitlist," she said. "The money was promised to them…and it was cut."

The Pointer asked Brown and City staff about the Referred Matters List and the priorities that were removed without being completed. They did not respond.

Brown was also asked why the report into Brampton University spending was never completed and whether he was responsible for removing the item from the Referred list. He did not respond. 

He was asked about other promises including the cricket stadium. Brown did not respond.

Email: [email protected]

At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories to ensure every resident of Brampton, Mississauga and Niagara has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you