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”.
The defamation lawsuit by Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown against CTV, following explosive reports of alleged sexual misconduct broadcast by CTV in 2018 that led to Brown stepping down as PC leader, has been settled.
Few details of any settlement between the two parties are available, and little information has been provided to clear the air around allegations against Brown, which he denies but the accusers have consistently maintained are true. The news reports are still available on the media outlet’s platforms.
The Ontario Land Tribunal—previously the LPAT, and the OMB before that—has long frustrated municipalities as an unelected body with the power to overturn the decisions of elected officials, and the will of the public.
Staring down a housing affordability crisis and the looming effects of climate change—both of which could be mitigated by smart land use policies—a new request to scrap the OLT looks to put the power back into the hands of municipalities.
A lawyer’s letter written on behalf of former Brampton CAO David Barrick has made 12 demands of the City of Brampton. It also confirms he was fired. Barrick alleges certain councillors have ruined his reputation.
He wants 36 months of salary, alongside $250,000 in damages and a positive reference letter from City Hall. Barrick earned around $322,000 in salary and taxable benefits in 2020, meaning the requested severance would amount to around $1 million paid by Brampton taxpayers.
A jam-packed Committee of Council meeting in Brampton promises several key discussions to continue moving on from the turbulent leadership of recently fired CAO David Barrick. Councillors will discuss its current integrity commissioner, unfunded projects and a questionable expense introduced by Mayor Patrick Brown in 2019.
Brampton Transit can claim a big win through a new loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Mississauga is planning its own electric transit transition, and the Region of Peel is addressing hospital and hospice funding.
A lack of judges to hear cases has been an ongoing issue in the Region of Peel—even before COVID-19.
Two years later, case backlogs have only grown. The City of Mississauga fears it may soon be unable to provide adequate access to justice.
The pace of growth and depletion of resources is unsustainable, destroying our environment in the process. Yet development has continued unabated and despite pledges to combat climate change from world leaders, carbon emissions continue to rise.
In the second of a 10-part series on the United Nations Decade of Restoration, The Pointer analyzes how we can invest in restoration efforts on the ground, and how preserving nature is a key solution in the fight to save our planet.
After obtaining financial documents and other information previously kept from them, councillors at the City of Brampton voted Wednesday to freeze all work on their bid to create a brand new university in Brampton. The plan, trumpeted as a sure thing by Mayor Patrick Brown and his council allies, has seen more than $600,000 in public money (twice the amount approved) go to two consulting firms, one with a personal link to him and the other with a direct connection to Councillor Rowena Santos.
Councillors said they have been kept in the dark while Brown and Santos worked behind the scenes to push a plan that benefited their friends, without producing any tangible results to help get a new university built.
Seven of Brampton’s eleven council members voted Wednesday to have an integrity commissioner investigate the relationship between Councillor Rowena Santos and a man who was given more than $100,000 of taxpayer money to work on an ill conceived plan to create Brampton University, which is now dead in the water.
David Wheeler has said he was a mentor to Santos and in 2017 she worked to get him elected in Nova Scotia, calling him a “dear friend”.
Instead of declaring a conflict and leaving the council chamber Santos voted to defeat the motion calling for an investigation into her connections with Wheeler, which will now go forward.
A long-term care facility designed specifically to cater to South Asian-Canadian seniors does not exist in Ontario. A bold plan from a local organization could bring such a facility to Brampton.
But the initiative has hit a snag after land initially promised by City Hall has been pulled without explanation. With a provincial deadline fast approaching, Indus Community Services is worried its dream may disappear.
Mississauga staff have strong words for the recommendations listed in Ontario's Housing Affordability Task Force report, noting that many of them won’t contribute to the stated goal of improving housing affordability.
In Brampton, council is considering alternative voting methods for the upcoming municipal election, and is looking to have the interim CAO identify departments in need of auditing.
The TRCA provides an update on a number of critical watershed plans.
One in four Ontarians are now seeking help for their mental health needs, according to a new survey by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).
In the Region of Peel, which receives disproportionately less funding per capita than other areas of the province, the jump in demand adds more pressure to a sector that is already sprinting to keep up.
A wave of Minister’s Zoning Orders from developers across Ontario has raised concerns among environmentalists and urban planners. They say developers are using the tool to sidestep the proper process and ram through projects without adequate consultation with experts and the public.
A motion adopted by Caledon council could restore some order to the process in the town. Will the rest of Peel follow suit?
Russian missiles and bombs are falling across Ukraine and on its capital city, Kyiv, as Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Europe’s largest country continues.
In Peel, a large Ukrainian diaspora is watching on in horror. Friends and relatives are worried for loved ones stuck among the chaos, while also trying to process a war unfolding on European soil for the first time in decades.
In January 2021, Brampton councillors slammed the brakes on a plan to create an arms-length body to manage the City’s real estate portfolio after it was revealed a consultant working on the project had close ties to Mayor Patrick Brown.
An audit of the City’s realty department, which would have been folded into the proposed corporation, has also been repeatedly delayed. It will now move forward, a decision that appears to have been made without following proper procedure.
Trade unions are shouldering the responsibility of combating anti-Black racism on construction sites across the GTA, while promoting an equitable, diverse and safe workspace for skilled tradespeople in Ontario.
During Black History Month, the Carpenters’ District Council of Ontario along with the Carpenters’ National Office shares a message of solidarity with workers of colour.
Robert D’Amboise, whose corrupt behaviour in Niagara was highlighted in a provincial Ombudsman’s investigation report before he was hired in Brampton, is no longer employed by City Hall.
He and another man recruited under former CAO David Barrick have now exited the City, after interim CAO Paul Morrison was given a mandate to restore good government in Brampton.
The Ontario Nurses’ Association has succeeded in securing a $5,000 “good faith” retention bonus for frontline nurses. The ounce of relief comes for nurses exhausted by close to two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Organizations representing nurses across the province are welcoming this “first-step”, but are expecting more from the Ford government.
Brampton City Council will hold a special meeting this week to deal with its procedural bylaw—a point of contention throughout a tumultuous period that culminated in the departure of the City’s disgraced CAO on February 11.
In Mississauga, the City is launching a new blueprint for attracting tech businesses to try and bolster itself as a leader in the innovation sector. A motion being discussed at the Region of Peel on Thursday could trigger more development activity on Mayfield Road. Regional council will also deal with numerous reports on homelessness and the housing crisis.
Inclusionary zoning has been branded by developers as a tool to download new housing costs onto buyers. With the adoption of the powerful planning tool in Toronto, Mississauga is inching closer to its own version, with wealthy builders kicking and screaming. The public is left in the middle, many adopting a NIMBY attitude against the idea while others are desperate to create a more mixed housing supply in the booming city.
Last week, controversial former Brampton CAO David Barrick was replaced by Paul Morrison, after a majority of councillors alleged democracy under the CAO and Mayor Patrick Brown, who brought the man here despite his scandalous past in Niagara, was “under siege”.
There has been a series of allegations, investigations and shocking conduct inside City Hall, but Brown has a history of trying to rewrite the truth. His shameful tactics place the public sector across Ontario at risk.
Described as a “highway of habitat”, an ongoing initiative by the David Suzuki Foundation looks to reconnect Ontario’s fragmented greenspaces, one wildflower at a time.
The Butterflyway Project urges volunteers to take agency over the spaces they enjoy: front lawn, backyard, or balcony, and create an environment welcoming to butterflies and other pollinators.
The MZO bug has caught Mississauga. The sometimes controversial minister’s zoning orders spark debate among stakeholders, especially when the tool is used to strip powers from the City. In a different set of circumstances, Mississauga has requested an enhanced MZO to help expedite a portion of the Mississauga Hospital expansion.
The president of Peel CAS’ board of directors will step down this summer after serving two terms. Juliet Jackson, who is also employed by the Region of Peel as a director, has grappled for the past year with an organization that staff and provincially-appointed investigators say is “seriously troubled”.
In November, the board placed CEO Rav Bains on administrative leave. The decision came after allegations of anti-Black racism, a toxic work culture and questionable spending by the head of the organization.
