An independent review that was conducted over the past two years by Williams HR Consulting Inc. reaffirmed what advocates have been saying for years: that the City of Brampton has developed a “culture of fear” for Black employees, with Black and racialized staff concentrated at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy and most Black and racialized participants in the review sharing personal experiences of differential and discriminatory treatment.
The rise of smartphones has created a world of ultimate connectivity, but it’s also created countless complications when these devices are used to accidentally dial emergency services. Calls to 911 in Peel are on the rise, and the number coming into operators that are not bonafide emergencies is also increasing.
Meanwhile, in Mississauga a strategy to boost urban agriculture is nearing final approval as the City looks to address food insecurity and climate change in one swoop.
After years of uncertainty for more than 3,000 autoworkers in Brampton and thousands more across Peel who rely on the giant assembly plant that produces two of the best selling muscle cars still on the market, an electric life line has been handed to the facility.
Workers are breathing much easier after Stellantis, which owns the Dodge and Chrysler brands, committed to a green future in Brampton, with the help of hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal and provincial governments, part of the automotive sector’s rapid transformation away from internal combustion vehicles.
In one month, Ontarians will flock to the polls to decide whether the PCs have done enough to earn a second term in government.
Candidate slates for the big parties have filled out across Peel and leaders have been campaigning while making all sorts of announcements, trying to secure as many of the 12 local seats that could mean the difference between another majority government, four years of minority rule or, perhaps, a new party in power.
A recent provincial appointment to the Peel Regional Police Services Board—a woman with close ties to Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie after working in her office for two years—is raising more questions about the board’s commitment to tackling issues of anti-Black racism in Mississauga and Brampton.
Kevin Yarde, Brampton North MPP, has left the NDP to sit as an independent until the completion of his term after losing a rare nomination contest for the upcoming June 2 provincial election. Incumbents usually are protected from any challenge to run again for their party.
The first Black member to represent Peel Region at Queen’s Park has now been replaced on the NDP slate by a man who says he’s a human rights activist.
Sticking to their dubious claim that the Province is forcing their hand, on Thursday Peel councillors voted to unlock nearly 11,000 acres of green space and prime farmland for future development.
The meeting, which stretched over four hours, saw members of the public continue to share their opposition to the plan and question why the Region is rushing to approve it before the provincial election, even though some councillors suggested they need more time.
This week a judge heard sentencing arguments in the impaired driving case for Brady Robertson, who faces imprisonment for killing a Caledon mother and her three young daughters.
Justice Sandra Caponecchia listened to Crown and defence arguments and will now decide on a sentence. Robertson was driving on a Brampton street with at least eight times the legal limit of THC, the active ingredient of cannabis, in his blood, going about 70 km/h above the speed limit when he violently crashed his car into the young family’s vehicle, killing them.
Patrick Brown is simultaneously running for the leadership of the federal Conservative Party while he’s supposed to be leading the City of Brampton as its mayor.
Fierce criticism is being levelled by Brampton residents questioning why their tax dollars are being abused as Brown refuses to take a leave of absence despite his round the clock campaigning. They accuse the mayor of playing dirty politics as numerous fake social media accounts spin claims defending Brown’s brand of politics.
A contentious plan to expand Peel’s urban boundary and open up 11,000 acres of green space and farmland for development will go to regional council for final approval Thursday.
A review completed for the City of Brampton has found a lot more work needs to be done to improve the workplace environment for Black and other visible minority employees at City Hall. Not only did the reviewers find a “culture of fear” among Black employees, but that nepotism continues to pervade hiring practices, and initiatives designed to increase diversity among employees are not genuine.
For 15 straight years while in power Ontario Liberal governments did little to confront widespread systemic discrimination in regions undergoing dramatic demographic shifts.
Now, with a campaign trying to build momentum ahead of the June 2 election, Steven Del Duca is pledging to do what his Party failed to. In an attempt to target ridings the Liberals lost in their crushing 2018 defeat, he says a government with him at the helm will finally tackle racism deeply ingrained in Ontario’s education and policing systems.
Grant Gorchynski has taken legal action in small claims court against Natalia Kusendova, a sitting MPP for Mississauga Centre, alleging she owes him money. As an MPP, Kusendova must disclose any gifts above $200 to the Ontario Integrity Commissioner.
Gorchynski alleges he gave her $30,500 most of which was in 2019. The statement of claim and its public disclosure come just as Kusendova is seeking reelection on June 2.
The judge deciding the case of Brady Robertson, the driver responsible for the death of a Caledon mother and her three daughters, has previously said the result of impaired driving charges will rest on the outcome of a constitutional challenge to Canada’s impaired driving laws.
That challenge on behalf of Robertson, whose blood had eight times the legal limit of the active ingredient in marijuana, has failed. Sentencing is now set to begin later this month.
A Brampton motion to ban e-scooters on ‘multi-use paths’ will be discussed at the city’s Cycling Committee meeting. Mississauga’s Integrity Commissioner Robert Swayze will provide an update on the investigation into the harassment of ex-councillor Karen Ras.
Caledon council could move to reduce public participation of discussion around housing in Bolton, and will also consider a fee for the use of fireworks in public events while banning them for personal use.
The first term member of council says he doesn’t have to keep regular hours, and has been able to get his work on behalf of constituents completed despite travelling across Canada to support Brown’s leadership campaign.
It’s unclear who is paying for his trips and how he has been staying on top of pressing issues Brampton Council is currently dealing with, while also representing the numerous concerns thousands of constituents routinely need help with.
A day after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued yet another alarming report detailing what’s at stake if we don’t reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, Premier Doug Ford and Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney announced a contract has been awarded to start early work on the Bradford Bypass, a 16-kilometre, 400-series highway.
The full-speed-ahead approach comes with no cost estimate released to the public and without all the proper studies usually required for such a significant transportation project.
The deferral of the Region of Peel’s Official Plan, following a motion from Councillor Carolyn Parrish, has increased tensions between members of the public and councillors. The move delays a final decision for two weeks so a few loose ends can be tied up.
This has prompted backlash from residents who requested the Region defer the Official Plan, which will open nearly 11,000 acres for future development, until after the provincial election on June 2.
The approval of nearly 11,000 acres for further development will have disastrous impacts on Peel’s natural world.
Despite promises and commitments to protect the region’s greenspaces, and council’s opposition to Highway 413 (which would lead to the same consequences councillors are about to trigger), the potential expansion could be approved by Peel’s elected officials in a final vote on Thursday.
The future of Peel is at stake Thursday, with Regional Council facing a decision on how hundreds of thousands of future residents will be accommodated. Staff are recommending the urban boundary be expanded by almost 11,000 acres, and last week’s planning meeting signalled elected officials will likely go along.
Meanwhile, dozens of residents and advocates want to change the trajectory of Peel Region forever, by moving to more dense, transit friendly complete communities as the climate and other changes around the way many want to live inform how smart growth should unfold.
In a letter to Brampton councillors, David Wheeler, a consultant who worked on the Brampton University project with links to Councillor Rowena Santos, is requesting a continuation of the abandoned plan. Council more or less scrapped the idea after consultant costs were revealed.
A report from Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s Black caucus comes before council, and Region of Peel council will decide on whether to open almost 11,000 acres for development, despite intense pushback from the community.
In Huttonville, a largely rural nook of Brampton tucked away near the western edge, a small forest continues to grow.
For years the City, Credit Valley Conservation and the public have been debating the Riverview Heights development that threatens to destroy it. Recently locals realized their beloved forest was going to be razed, and were shocked by documents from consultations that claim the forest is not ecologically valuable enough to preserve. A small group of environmentalists think otherwise and want to protect the beauty of their forest. They want to know where the decision to destroy it came from.
After years of pleading by residents, numerous motions by the NDP asking for significant hospital investments in Brampton, and two years after City Council declared a healthcare emergency, demanding 850 new beds, the PC government announced more funding ahead of the June 2 election. But stakeholders are getting nervous in the absence of details from the Province and the organization that manages the city’s two main facilities.
Despite the efforts of Patrick Brown and councillors loyal to him, a majority of City Hall’s elected officials refused to ignore the need to immediately start raising $125 million for a local share investment required to move forward with the expansion of Peel Memorial.
Wednesday’s council meeting made clear that Brown (supported by four members) is putting his federal political ambitions ahead of Brampton’s ongoing healthcare crisis.
On Thursday, hundreds of people shared their desire for the Region of Peel to freeze its urban boundary and avoid unlocking 10,000 acres of land for future development.
Councillors asked no questions of the numerous residents, doctors, farmers and environmental advocates who made the case for preventing more environmentally destructive development. Elected officials instead sided with regional staff who say the extra land is needed to accommodate Peel’s growing population.
The Region of Peel is recommending the addition of more than 10,000 acres of land for development over the next 30 years. The space is needed in order to accommodate future growth, staff argue.
Hundreds of residents and environmental advocates disagree, stating the scale of development will do significant damage to Peel’s natural spaces, impact Ontario’s fight against climate change and lock in sprawling forms of auto-dependent residential growth.
This week at the Region of Peel, the planning and growth committee will set the tone for how Peel will accommodate massive population increase in the decades ahead. More sprawl? Or freeze the urban boundary and develop denser communities? Residents and developers will appear Thursday to plead their case.
In Brampton, delays around constructing a much needed transit maintenance facility, to relieve a bottleneck preventing the growth of the system, have led to “significant cost escalation”. Staff are going back to the drawing board.
Doug Ford's PC government made two perplexing moves shortly after taking office: the elimination of the electric vehicle subsidy which tanked sales; then the release of a carbon reduction plan that relied heavily on dramatically increasing the number of electric vehicles sold in the province.
Experts are calling recent commitments to expand charging infrastructure ineffective without incentives to buy green vehicles. They want Ford to reintroduce the rebates he eliminated when claiming they were helping rich people buy Teslas.
Brown wants to be Canada’s next prime minister.
Canadians of all political stripes should consider the damage he has caused as mayor in the City of Brampton, where a majority of councillors say “democracy is under siege” as a result of his disturbing leadership.
After four years of tax freezes, the need for a second hospital forces Brampton to begin collecting funds through a special levy. Approval in committee Wednesday signals it will be finalized next week in full council.
The City is asking the PC government for the 850 beds it demanded, not the 250 offered, and is hoping the Region will shoulder part of the local funding needed to get the Peel Memorial expansion off the ground.
The future of the Peel Memorial Phase 2 expansion remains unclear, as local taxpayers are being asked to cover $125 million for a project that might not even create a second hospital in the city.
Brampton Civic remains the only full-service hospital in the city with the only fully functional emergency department, as residents wait to learn Peel Memorial’s fate.
Parents with toddlers have been desperate for $10-a-day child care in Ontario but the flurry of excitement over this week’s announcement between the provincial and federal governments was lost on many in Peel.
Regional staff released a report last week outlining numerous issues in Peel, where securing daycare spaces is a monumental task. A dire lack of child care staff in the region is part of the problem.
At budget time, Brampton councillors voted against the establishment of a levy to help raise further funds for the expansion of Peel Memorial. Now, with limited options to help cover its share of the expanded healthcare facility, councillors are reconsidering that decision.
As part of a review into issues of systemic racism at the Peel District School Board by the Ministry of Education, a pair of reports have been released detailing gaps in the system that impact students with special needs, and a number of ways the PDSB can improve the educational experience for South Asian and Sikh youth.
Snover Dhillon, who was convicted of fraud before he worked closely with Patrick Brown and was allegedly involved in fraudulent nomination schemes under the former Ontario PC leader, has been named by Indian police as the alleged main conspirator in a high-profile murder case. Brown’s team says Dhillon has not worked with him since he became mayor.
The latest report by the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario found 88 percent of Black nurses experienced racism or discrimination and about 63 percent of respondents say their mental health was affected because of racial microaggressions and systemic discrimination at work.
The community in Peel where visible minorities make up the vast majority of the population often lacks representation. RNAO’s Black Nurses Task Force leads by example and put forward 19 recommendations to combat anti-Black racism during a recent virtual conference.
The scale of the aggregate industry does not align with the sheer lack of regulations in place to contain expansion of these operations.
The industry is already approved to remove 13 times more stone, sand and gravel from the heart of Ontario every year than we actually use in the province. Yet, proposals to expand into more farmland, more natural spaces and more sensitive ecosystems continue to flood in.
A new campaign is pushing to hit the pause button.
Response to the recent attack at a Mississauga Mosque illustrates the challenges of ascribing intent before all the evidence has been carefully weighed. After quietly entering the premises the suspect filled the room with bear spray before being tackled to the ground. Police have released few details on the motive for his actions, after initially suggesting hate could have been a factor.
In hopes of convincing the Doug Ford government to foot the full bill for Brampton’s desperately needed expansion of Peel Memorial, Regional Council unanimously decided to push Queen’s Park to cover the usual local share for hospital funding.
Healthcare partners serving Peel, particularly William Osler in Brampton, face an uphill task to cover tens of millions of dollars the Province typically demands from local stakeholders in order to get massive projects off the ground.
Two more senior staffers at the City of Brampton are no longer employed by the municipality, following sweeping changes promised by a majority group of councillors.
Tamming was the City’s director of corporate communications, culture and events. He had direct ties to recently fired CAO David Barrick and Mayor Brown. Both former employees were linked through the Ontario Ombudsman’s explosive Inside Job investigation into corrupt hiring practices at Niagara Region. Their involvement didn’t stop Brown from bringing them to City Hall.
Brown spent more than $16,000 from the public purse promoting his Facebook account between June 2019 and February 2022. Other mayors, including those from Toronto and Mississauga, have not spent a cent in that time.
A recent move will allow him even more discretion to use social media promotion for his political ambitions, with little oversight of how money provided by local taxpayers is spent.
To assist those most impacted by Peel’s ongoing housing crisis, the Region of Peel is working to create additional healthcare resources for the region’s homeless population.
Peel staff have concluded 40,000 child care spaces are needed over the next four years to deal with surging demand.
Mississauga Councillor Carolyn Parrish is moving a motion to continue the City’s opposition to Highway 413.
The decision by federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault to not designate the Bradford Bypass for an impact assessment is being challenged in court.
Environmental organizations claim the decision was disproportionately reliant on decisions made by the former environment minister and did not adequately consider new evidence about the destructive highway plan being pushed by the Ontario PC government.
A prominent Toronto soccer player, with a history of coaching and playing in Mississauga, has been stuck overseas after fleeing the war in Ukraine.
Denys Rylskyi and his family have been living in Dnipro since 2020, but the recent Russian invasion has upended their lives and made them more desperate to return to what they left behind in Canada.
Mayor Patrick Brown has made it official, he wants to be the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
But with months until any decision in that race is made, Brampton is left with a mayor who will be clearly distracted. What can residents expect to change at City Hall?
Time is running out for the Brampton Fiat/Chrysler assembly plant, owned by auto conglomerate Stellantis. A deal to produce gas-powered cars at the facility is set to expire at the end of 2023 with no new product promised.
City staff and councillors have embarked on an advocacy campaign to attract the automaker’s attention. Options for the plant’s future could include more gas cars, a switch to electric vehicles or a full retooling of the site for new products like batteries.
A day after she threatened to sue them if they terminated her contract, that is exactly what a majority of Brampton councillors did on Friday, terminating the employment of now former integrity commissioner Muneeza Sheikh. After expressing concern over the amount she had billed the taxpayers of Brampton since taking on the role in 2019, a group of elected officials took the bold step to replace her.
Peel Children’s Aid Society’s CEO has been on administrative leave since November pending a board investigation and now the director of finance has also stepped back.
The organization is on a journey to respond to sharp criticism raised in a provincial review published in October 2021. That process is being completed by the Peel CAS board and the Province, with Queen’s Park ultimately responsible if the board fails.
After their colleagues on the other side of the council divide violated in camera rules by revealing what took place during a closed session meeting Wednesday—stating publicly that others are attempting to terminate the contract of integrity commissioner Muneeza Sheikh—councillors have told The Pointer they will not be intimidated by a legal threat issued to them Thursday by Sheikh. She vowed legal action against them if they follow through with terminating her contract.
A judge has tossed out a defamation lawsuit filed by local pediatrician Dr. Kulvinder Gill against several doctors and media outlets, including The Pointer.
Gill alleged she was defamed when numerous media outlets reported on comments she made on Twitter in 2020 downplaying the risks of COVID-19 and stating “we don’t need a vaccine.”
An agreement between the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the City of Brampton is all but locked up, providing millions of dollars to the municipality to convert its transit fleet from diesel to zero emission alternatives.
Brampton plans to begin with ten battery-powered buses in 2022, but the larger vision of replacing 450 dirty diesel buses with electric ones by 2027, could be compromised by Brampton’s depleted finances.
Caledon council voted no to a motion asking to reconsider its support for the GTA West Corridor, the 413 Highway plan being aggressively pushed by the Doug Ford PC government ahead of June’s provincial election.
Two of the three council members that voted down the motion did not offer any explanation, while Caledon Mayor Allan Thompson called it “short-sighted”.
