Brampton mayoral candidate Prabh Gill has radical ideas to change City Hall

Family man and arbitrator Prabh Gill considers himself a “problem solver before a politician.” He is not a career politician, the father of two insists, and he leans heavily on being from a middle-class family. Gill prefers to listen than talk, especially to his fellow Brampton residents.

They live in a particularly challenging time.

That’s why he wants to represent them inside City Hall, to make local government work for them. 

He is not running for the title of “Mayor” and the status of the job, or its lucrative salary. 

Brampton mayoral candidate Prabh Gill has worked as an arbitrator, with experience as a divorce and separation coach. He volunteers with International Mediation Beyond Borders, an organization affiliated with the UN. (Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

Gill wants investigations opened up that were previously shut down by Patrick Brown, after a preliminary report for an external forensic probe called by a majority group of councillors implicated Brown. He then terminated the investigations in 2022 when the controversial mayor was at the centre of sweeping allegations of City Hall corruption. 

“I’m publishing what they find and I’m serving the full four years,” Gill said, referring to the investigations he would re-open, and his commitment to stay on the job, unlike Brown, who ran for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership last term, without stepping down as mayor. Brown had previously used City Hall resources to help Peter MacKay in his bid to lead the federal Conservatives, and it was widely rumoured the mayor would have quit had his friend won.

Gill has worked in human rights and as an arbitrator and a certified divorce and separation coach. He also volunteers with International Mediation Beyond Borders, a peacebuilding organization affiliated with the United Nations. He has also been a community ambassador with Peel Regional Police.

At the centre of his campaign is a radical idea he insists will bring accountability and responsible local government to his city. He wants to turn City Hall into a “One problem, One owner” institution, where every issue is delegated to a single municipal official. Whether it’s something as small as filling a pothole or building a giant new employment campus, the type of city building he says Brown has utterly failed at, Gill’s system will delegate responsibility, empower motivated staff, and hold them accountable to produce. 

Brown has shown little interest in Brampton, criss-crossing around the world as mayor, twice trying to leave for the federal government, and rarely spending time in the city to focus on critical investments, economic development and community building. Gill said other than promoting himself, leveraging his political power and attacking his opponents, Brown has done nothing for Brampton.

“The City has collected somewhere between $1.5 and $1.6 billion from residents for capital projects that never got built,” he said, questioning what Brown has done for eight years. “There’s no transparency, no accountability.”

Gill criticized how Brampton’s current 311 system currently operates. A Brampton resident rings 311 with a complaint, and is issued a ticket number without updating the resident on the progress of the issue. 

Gill’s “One problem, One owner” model would assign an official to the issue, if it is more than a simple one-off matter, publish a capital status report to council and escalate to a departmental manager if the issue has not been resolved. The existing infrastructure would be enough for him to implement this plan, he says, and no re-structuring or additional costs would be required.

Issues such as systemic property standards violations, failure to clear snow or cut grass, and bylaw inspections that fall way too far behind, would all be reported to council and the public, where Gill says accountability ultimately rests, not behind Patrick Brown’s closed-door “kingdom”.

Prabh Gill’s “One problem, one owner” model would bring accountability to City Hall. (Alexis Wright/The Pointer)

“Every problem that comes into City Hall gets one named person who owns it until it’s solved,” he said. “And the resident knows who that person is.”

Gill would immediately uncover Brown’s attempts to sweep scandals under the rug, referring to the Ontario Ombudsman, who urged Brampton City Council to revisit and complete the half-dozen forensic investigations into allegedly fraudulent procurements and hiring, including contracts that went to Brown’s friends, work on the failed Brampton University project and the employment of controversial integrity commissioner Muneeza Sheikh. The investigations, which were launched in 2022 by a majority group of councillors, were cancelled in a last-minute special council meeting called by Brown when he knew councillor absences gave him enough votes to cancel the probes into his conduct as mayor.

“Patrick Brown has treated Brampton like his own personal piggy bank. Six councillors, a majority of them, last term wrote a public letter declaring ‘Democracy is Under Siege in Brampton’ because of Patrick Brown. Think about that. He has turned our city into a place like Putin’s Russia; or Donald Trump’s White House. I’m going to give our city back to the people who will still be here long after he runs off to his next political stop.” 

Brown subsequently claimed publicly that the Ombudsman had said there was no need for the investigations, which was a blatant lie. The Ombudsman’s letter instead expressed concern that the probes had been cancelled before completion, and directed council to reopen the investigations Brown pulled the plug on. He ignored the direction from the provincial watchdog. 

The cases remain closed, four years after Brown, Rowena Santos, Paul Vicente, Michael Palleschi and Harkirat Singh voted to cancel the six forensic investigations. No current council member has taken action to reopen them. Brown did not respond to questions. 

Gill also had strong words on accountability in healthcare, specifically the Peel Memorial Phase 2 expansion. The project has been stalled for almost a decade, with the final cost for the construction still unknown. Gill said he needs to know, like many Brampton residents, why Patrick Brown has not had a “proper dialogue with the province.”

“The province funds it, Infrastructure Ontario procures it, and [William] Osler runs it,” he said. “But the mayor’s responsibility starts the moment the city takes a dollar from residents for it, and it does not end until the doors open.”

The City of Brampton has committed $125 million as its local share toward the Peel Memorial Phase 2 hospital expansion and a new cancer centre. Despite Brown publicly championing the project in 2021, no local funding mechanism appeared in either the 2020 or 2021 City budgets, as he demanded tax freezes. Councillor Pat Fortini’s motion to study a special levy was presented as the first step toward the funding plan. In 2022, Brown openly rejected funding for the local share from City Hall, while he was running for the Conservative leadership on a platform of being a fiscally conservative mayor. Councillors expressed anger toward Brown, for sacrificing the healthcare of Brampton residents so he could have a campaign slogan that claimed he kept budgets frozen.

Brown, Premier Doug Ford and Osler officials staged a March 2025 “groundbreaking” ceremony at the Peel Memorial site right after the provincial election, that involved no actual construction. 

There is still no money for capital construction approved by the province for the Peel Memorial expansion, despite Brown’s misleading claims during the current election campaign, a pattern of broken promises and dubious claims by the mayor.

Gill also spoke on the $19.4 million internal loan the city took from an emergency/rate-stabilization reserve to cover the operating budget, to be repaid via the hospital levy, and the lack of transparency and accountability from City officials. 

In response to a question from Councillor Michael Palleschi during a January 20, 2026 special council meeting, staff confirmed the amount of unspent capital tied to previously approved but unbuilt projects was between $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion. The money was already collected from taxpayers for work that was somehow mismanaged under Brown’s absent leadership. The projects never moved forward and it remains unclear what happened to the taxpayer funds that were collected. 

Brampton’s capital project backlog had grown to 583 approved, but unbuilt projects, and debt repayment costs could reach $50 million annually by 2030. The Pointer reported that no new capital investment had been planned for the long-needed Transit Maintenance and Storage Facility or the Riverwalk flood mitigation project, even as the City raised taxes to cover shortfalls caused by years of Brown’s earlier budget freezes. 

“We’ve had councillors…flying to Taiwan, Portugal, or something like that,” Gill said, commenting on trips by Rowena Santos and Paul Vicente that cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for no apparent benefit to the city, with critics who said council members are hiking taxes while funding “foreign junkets that accomplish nothing.” 

“Think about it,” Gill continued, “with no investment to show for it, that’s wasteful spending.”

An investigation by The Pointer in 2025 using Freedom-of-Information (FOI) requests obtained years of travel records for Brown and allied councillors and staff that documented a pattern of expensive flights, luxury hotel stays and trips to Taipei, Portugal, Japan, India, Dubai, Germany and other overseas destinations that have no connection to Brampton. No public documentation existed that showed any observable benefits. 

In December of 2025, The Pointer reported on a 2024 trip to Tokyo and Manila by Councillor Rowena Santos, that cost taxpayers over $20,000. Despite Councillor Santos telling The Pointer that she personally covered her own flights and accommodations, she did not answer any follow-up questions regarding the details of her repayment, or why she would reimburse the costs in the first place, when she claimed the travel was for City business. 

Gill is vowing to bring accountability to City Hall following years of abuse.

“Instead of strengthening it, we’re bringing…a backdoor deal with a private company,” he said of a transit deal with private company Argo, while Brampton Transit service was cut in August. “In April, the City transit workers were heading towards a strike over wages…On the same day, the union rejected the offer, the mayor announced an $11 million deal with a private firm.”

The labour dispute unfolded in May 2025 when ATU Local 1573, representing 1,400 Brampton Transit Workers, voted with 99 per cent support for a strike mandate after accusing the City of walking back an already agreed wage offer during bargaining. The Union president expressed his frustration with the City’s approach as “bad faith bargaining.”

The City then approved the Argo on-demand transit contract in a closed-session vote on April 17, 2025, while the transit union was simultaneously accusing management of bargaining in bad faith. A subsequent FOI request produced mostly scheduling emails and a fully redacted draft report. There is no public information about the details of the agreement with Argo, which had been operating for less than a year with no prior track record on a project of this kind. 

Gill stressed the need to bring more skilled trade workers to Brampton, alluding to companies like Stellantis. 

“The auto plant is retooling, and every supply decision for the next decade is up for grabs,” he said. “We need to attract skilled trade workers.”

He accused Brown of being too busy planning his next political move to help Brampton’s 3,000 Stellantis workers.

Gill said he would never use Brampton as a “stepping stone.” 

“Leaders don’t do that,” he said. “Leaders, they get in, they resolve.” 

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