Patrick Brown alters skyrocketing expense records: $430K spent on social media; $9K for flowers; $212 to wash his car; $3.6K on framed hockey jerseys

After The Pointer sent detailed questions about alarming spending by the Brampton Mayor, Patrick Brown altered his expense records, which exposed what he has charged to the city’s taxpayers over the past three years.

In 2017, Linda Jeffrey’s last full year as mayor of Brampton, her non-salary expenses, paid for by the city’s taxpayers, were $26,199.

In 2023, Patrick Brown’s expenses, paid for by the city’s taxpayers, were $407,357. In 2024 his expenses cost taxpayers $461,923. Last year they were $336,068.

His altered expense report can be viewed here.

His average spending paid for by Brampton taxpayers is approximately 1,400 percent higher than what Jeffrey spent.

Patrick Brown has faced criticism for his use of taxpayer money throughout his controversial political career. 

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

The Pointer obtained Brown’s expense records for the current term of office, and sent detailed questions about the items the mayor used taxpayer money to purchase. 

He then altered the records, erasing many of the descriptions for the most questionable spending, including thousands of dollars for framed hockey jerseys and tens of thousands for social media monitoring. 

Ahead of the approval for Brampton’s 2026 budget, Tracy Pepe, a Brampton resident and community advocate, had a number of pointed questions for Mayor Brown about excessive spending at City Hall associated with senior, non-unionized management staff and the mayor’s own alarming spending on the taxpayers’ dime.  

“You send out newsletters and Christmas cards. I'm a business owner; there's a cost to that. If we are in a (difficult) economic situation, why aren't we cutting costs at City Hall?” Pepe asked during a budget “coffee chat” hosted by Councillor Paul Vicente on January 18. 

“What measures are actually being considered for management, supervisors, City Hall expenses? I know our Prime Minister asked every department to reduce expenses by 15 percent, is that not a viable tool for more cost saving? And finally, your own personal expense budgets, your own personal expenses; is there any cost-saving measures on your own?”

Brown thanked Pepe for the inquiry, then promptly ignored her.  

Brampton taxpayers, without having any say, are spending far more than what has been budgeted for Brown to run a mayor’s office that, to critics, operates more like a campaign headquarters.

“This mayor has no respect for the office he holds, and absolutely zero respect for the hardworking Brampton residents who put him in that office,” former councillor Elaine Moore, who has been an outspoken critic of Brown, told The Pointer after reviewing his expense report. 

“There should be an investigation into every dollar this man has charged to the Brampton taxpayer. Every single day someone—a neighbour, local business owner, friend or former constituent, the person working at the neighbourhood store—asks me how this mayor can get away with his spending.”

She said much of his use of taxpayer dollars appears to be nothing more than campaign-style self-promotion. 

“We are inundated with his flyers, pamphlets and brochures; glossy, expensive materials that serve to promote him, and spread his misinformation like one of his campaign flyers. But these are paid for by us, by every taxpayer in Brampton. People are getting tired of him. They want an end to his abuse, while residents struggle with the cost of living these days.”

The mayor did not respond to a detailed list of questions related to his expenses and spending on City staff. 

In 2023, Council, led by Brown, budgeted $216,209 for Brown’s non-salary business expenses; he spent $407,357, almost double the tax dollars he was supposed to use. 

In 2024, $222,638 was budgeted for his non-salary expenses; he spent $461,923, more than double what he was supposed to. 

After The Pointer sent detailed questions to the Mayor in January, raising concerns about some of the items he spent taxpayer money on, he altered the official expense report document, removing details of many of the most alarming charges.

Brown, an avid hockey fan, charged taxpayers $2,874.22 in May last year for “framing of hockey jersey” at retail outlet Michael’s. Two months later Brampton residents shelled out $717.41 for a “Mitch Marner hockey shirt framing” and then in October of 2025 $421.29 was billed to “frame newspaper clip from hockey night in Brampton”.

After The Pointer’s review of his expense report and questions that were sent to Brown, he had the document changed. All of the above charges now simply state the costs were for “Framing” with the original explanation of what the approximately $4,000 of taxpayer money was used for, removed from the report.

After The Pointer asked about the more than $430,000 of Brampton taxpayer money Brown spent on social media over a three-year period, he altered the expense report, changing some of the original invoice descriptions from “Social Media Monitoring” to “Digital Community Engagements”. 

After The Pointer sent questions about Patrick Brown’s expenses, and particularly the more than $430,000 of Brampton taxpayer money he spent on social media over a three-year period, he altered his expense reports, changing some of the original invoice descriptions from “Social Media Monitoring” to “Digital Community Engagements”.

(City of Brampton)

Brown has enjoyed zero opposition this term of council, after four of his six councillor opponents during the previous term either retired or were defeated in the 2022 municipal election. 

Not one elected official has questioned his spending on things like $212.68 to have Brown’s taxpayer-funded City vehicle washed in July of 2024. He has made taxpayers spend more than $8,700 on flowers for residents this term of council, something other mayors in the GTA do not spend taxpayer money on.

Even small costs are billed to the city’s taxpayers. In October of 2024 Brown spent $5.08 to purchase an app from the Apple store for his iPhone.

In June of 2024, Brown used taxpayer dollars for $10,176 worth of “Blue Folders for certificates”.

The same month, he spent $519 for taxi charges and accommodation in Montreal, with no details explaining why he was there.

In December of 2024, he spent $917 in one day for “coffee and pop” for the “Mayor’s visitors”.

In May of 2025, taxpayers were billed almost $1,000 for food and drinks to celebrate the retirement of one of Brown’s office staff. 

In the same month, $2,873 (approximately $1,400 twice) was spent to frame two hockey jerseys, and another $717 in July of 2025 to frame a Mitch Marner jersey, then $421 in October to frame a newsclip of his hockey night in Brampton event, and $516 for “Framing” in December. 

In October of 2025, $1,400 was spent by the mayor on “coffee and pop” for Brown’s visitors.  

Brown has a history of controversial spending of taxpayer money.

Right before he became mayor of Brampton, when he was still an MPP and leader of the Ontario PC Party, the CBC reported Brown spent almost $300,000 on his MPP office in two months. 

He spent more than three times what other MPPs billed over the same period, and his expenditures in just two months, heading into an election, were about the same as they were over the entire fiscal year previously. Brown was forced to resign ahead of the 2018 provincial election after two women accused him of rape and attempted rape (he denies the allegations which still stand).

As Brampton grapples with financial pressures from a mounting deficit, increasing debt and a lack of critical investments for badly needed projects, expense records for the city’s eleven locally elected council members show Mayor Brown’s office has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on questionable costs covered by taxpayers, including social media promotions and hospitality. 

Between December 2022 and November 2025, Brown spent approximately $427,463 in total on social media monitoring, a big chunk of the money, $235,699, going to Solarit Solutions Inc., the same company used during his failed 2022 run to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. As reported by The Pointer at the time, Brown used Brampton taxpayer funds for social media posts to support his federal leadership campaign, an apparent violation of federal election laws. Brown was eventually disqualified from that race for allegedly having campaign staff paid for by a third party. 

"I don't think taxpayers' dollars should be spent to promote an individual, and that's what it appears like. A lot of this is done to promote himself,” Moore, the former Brampton councillor, told The Pointer. "It appears more money is being spent promoting themselves than explaining the work of the City and how taxpayers actually benefit from the taxes they pay."

Taxpayers are also paying extravagant amounts for staff in Brown’s office, more than double the amount he billed during his first term. In 2019, taxpayers paid $571,998.30 to cover staff in Brown’s office. That number has ballooned more than 108 percent in just five years, costing $1,193,005.13 in 2024. The final remuneration and expense documents for 2025 have not yet been made public. 

Brown’s approach to spending and the way the City communicates its public use of funds have drawn criticism from finance experts.

"I would say City Hall has not done enough to clearly communicate its spending and taxation decisions or any fiscal restraint it has chosen to undertake," said Nicholas Dahir, an economist with the C.D. Howe Institute, pointing to Brampton’s “middle-of-the-pack performance” in the organization’s scorecards which grade the fiscal accountability of Canadian municipalities. 

Dahir suggested Brampton should offer more time for residents to review the complex financial document (Brampton’s 2026 budget is nearly 600 pages), which would foster more meaningful public discussion, since elected officials “make decisions, but ultimately answer to the public.” 

“He is not very fiscally responsible,” Pepe told The Pointer. “This is the problem with the council: they are not transparent.” 

Moore agrees.

"I personally have a lot of questions about his travel and the fact that it doesn't appear in his expenses, and yet, there's a general sense that he's doing a lot more traveling on the taxpayers' dime, and they (City officials) are not being transparent about it,” Moore said. 

Brown’s poor fiscal management is reflected in this year’s budget—approved on February 6—which leans heavily on new debt, relies on unsecured grant funding from upper levels of government (nearly 35 percent of the entire capital budget), and lacks spending on major city-building projects, which he promised years ago.

Instead, repeated budget freezes following his election in 2018 have significantly harmed the City’s fiscal position, while his own lavish spending has jumped drastically. To supplement the operating budget—and prevent going to taxpayers for more money during an election year—Brown instead pushed through a “short-term internal loan” of $19.4 million, and asked the General Government department to find about $4.1 million in savings or new revenue at some point this year. According to the motion, the internal load will be paid back through the revenue collected from the “2nd Hospital Levy” after fulfilling the $125 million City Hall commitment for the expansion of Peel Memorial.

These questionable financial decisions will result in very little benefit for Brampton taxpayers as the 2026 budget ignores many critical projects like significant investment into the downtown core, or the Riverwalk. Instead, a large proportion of the money being taken from taxpayers this year is going to cover one thing; surging labour costs, particularly for non-unionized management, and senior staff. Brown’s lavish perks, including handing out car allowances of more than $10,000 annually for some senior staff, have drawn criticism from Pepe, Moore and other residents concerned about the mayor’s priorities.

“I worked for five years to bring accountability into City Hall, and particularly in the mayor’s office,” Moore said. “Some of my former council colleagues and I saw every day how abused Brampton’s hardworking residents felt prior to 2014, when voters finally threw Susan Fennell out of office in a resounding decision. It was a lot of hard work by the entire city. Four years later, Patrick Brown used Brampton voters to save his career, then immediately flushed all that hard work down the toilet in the blink of an eye.” 

In 2017, the year before Brown became mayor, the total salary expenditure for all those on Brampton’s Sunshine List was $90 million with 764 City of Brampton employees on the list; in 2025, under Brown’s leadership, the City of Brampton salary costs on the Sunshine list ballooned to $270 million, with 2,117 City of Brampton staff on the list, which includes those Ontario public sector employees who make $100,000 or more. 

In less than seven years, the number of City of Brampton staff earning $100,000 or more has increased by almost 180 percent.

Unionized staff working for the City are paid under a fixed wage bracket with limited pay growth over time. Their increases are dwarfed by the consistent boost in pay to high-level, non-unionized managers, directors, commissioners and other senior staff.

For example, CUPE 831, the union representing more than 1,200 municipal workers in the city, was bargaining in 2024 for a new deal with City officials, seeking a pay increase between 4.5 and 6 percent over 5 years. The City of Brampton pushed for just a three percent increase. The disconnect led to a brief strike. 

Striking CUPE 831 workers picketing outside Brampton City Hall in the fall of 2024.

(Muhammad Hamza/The Pointer files) 

“Management benefits are significantly better than ours…Their vacation is better than ours, their ability to have flexibility in scheduling and (balancing) private life and when emergencies pop up or remote workplaces are better than us, right? So, all we're asking is some type of economic increase that covers the rising costs…What's being offered isn't even comparable to other municipalities,” Fabio Gazzola, the union president at the time, told The Pointer. 

On social media, Brown criticized the union, calling the strike “unacceptable” and framing their spending request as irresponsible, despite benchmarks that showed unionized workers in surrounding cities were earning more than Brampton workers. 

Brown’s spending and salary increased more than three times the low-end increase that was requested by the union. 

A deal with CUPE 831 was ratified in November of 2024, but the approved increase was never revealed.

Three years before Brown became mayor, a special external financial review was conducted under former mayor Linda Jeffrey, who faced the fallout from widespread anger over the way Fennell had abused taxpayers. City officials were advised that spending on non-union employees, including the mayor, needed to be kept in check; otherwise, Brampton would face dire financial consequences. 

“Managing the growth in operating expenses and especially in the city payroll is something that council and city management will need to pay increasing attention to if they are to make any significant headway in improving annual operating results and replenishing city reserve levels,” the 2015 external review concluded. 

Jeffrey, who slashed her salary after being elected, demanded that non-union salary increases be scaled back and fired the chief administrative officer, John Corbett, in 2015 for failing to bring forward a budget at the time with a plan to rein in management salary costs.

Days after the departure of Corbett, in 2015, the external auditor general hired for the financial review, Jim McCarter, detailed in a scathing report that two-thirds of every dollar spent on city operations went to salaries and benefits, and that the payroll costs were consuming more than 90 percent of property tax revenue increases related to growth each year.

Brown has done the opposite of what Jeffrey did, allowing high-end salaries to skyrocket, then cutting critical services and delaying badly needed infrastructure projects.

His own lavish spending on frequent overseas travel and the many items listed above has shocked many residents who are struggling during this time of record unaffordability.

Patrick Brown did not answer questions about his own expense report, which he altered.

(City of Brampton) 

According to this expense filings, since December 2022, Brampton taxpayers have been charged $88,531.37 paid to Zyn Media and $72,736.04 to Ibrahim Group Strategies Corporation for “Social Media Monitoring”. More than $30,000 has gone to Piphany Capital Corp for “website content”.

“This is for nothing more than his own self-promotion, and the next move in his failing political career,” Moore said. “And we’re paying for it.” 

In June 2024, Brown spent $10,176.02 for “Blue Folders for Certificates” with no explanation.

Two transactions in March 2023 totalling $12,211.22 were charged to Brampton taxpayers for “strategic advice related to combating auto theft” from Rob Davis & Associates. It’s unclear why Davis, a former Toronto councillor and mayoral candidate in the city who has never worked in policing, was hired to consult on auto thefts.

In July 2023, Brown spent $25,921.76 on “cricket promotional items”. “Engraved Cricket Bat Keychains” cost Brampton taxpayers $5,596.81 in February 2024.

The questionable spending did not end there. 

In July 2024, the mayor paid $212.68 for a car wash. That same month he spent $417.33 on Coffee/pop for “the mayor’s visitors”.

He previously refused to answer questions from The Pointer about $44,000 he billed to taxpayers in 2019 under a broad catch-all category for external legal expenses, shortly after he was embroiled in public disputes with former political foes stemming from his disgraced exit from the Ontario PC Party ahead of the 2018 election, and sweeping accusations he made against his enemies in a tell-all book he released just as Brown won the Brampton mayor’s seat in 2018.

“He thinks Brampton residents are suckers,” Moore said. “But he underestimates this city. There’s an election this year, and people are really mad.” 

Email: [email protected]

Email: [email protected]

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