Delegations at the Region of Peel this week will focus on high water bills, shelter funding, how to keep COVID-19 out of communities and the growing deficit. Mississauga has an important in-camera discussion after Councillor Ron Starr sought an injunction against an integrity commissioner report which was slated to be released. Brampton is set to hear from a group of private developers on how they can build the cricket stadium Patrick Brown promised would be finished by now.
Peel District School Board has taken small steps to address its systemic discrimination problem.
Charmaine Williams has traded her city council seat for one inside Queen’s Park, where she will represent Brampton Centre as an MPP on the Progressive Conservative side of the aisle.
Former Ward 1 and 5 councillor Elaine Moore will be filling in until new council members are sworn in after the October 24 municipal election.
The small rural Town of Erin sits just north of Peel Region, in essence they are neighbours. But the township is not being very neighbourly; it is constructing a wastewater treatment facility that will dump effluent into Peel’s watershed which empties into Lake Ontario. It’s another huge developer-backed project to make way for sprawl that will impact the Credit River ecosystem and take another chunk out of Ontario’s so-called ‘untouchable’ Greenbelt.
Highway 413 has lost all opposition in Queen’s Park from Brampton as the Progressive Conservatives sweep the entire region with only about a third of local voters casting a ballot.
Without pressure from the official opposition in Brampton, the city’s ongoing hallway healthcare crisis needs a new advocate.
After it was revealed that Councillor Rowena Santos and Mayor Patrick Brown were linked to the two firms at the heart of a forensic audit into the mishandling of the failed BramptonU project which cost the city $629,000, they tried their best to stop members of council determined to move the investigation forward.
A group of six councillors used the authority of their majority this week to ensure a forensic firm will be able to do its work free from interference by Santos, Brown or their council allies.
Brampton West is a swing riding, held strong by the Liberals in 2014, before the Progressive Conservatives narrowly beat the NDP in 2018.
In 2022, the election will show whether residents reject the man who refused to support their healthcare needs for the last four years; or if the PC highway mandate trumps the well being of voters.
The deeply disturbing behaviour of the provincial government over the last four years swept across Ontario’s electorate with blinding speed. In four years Doug Ford and his PC colleagues managed to undo longstanding environmental protections that once made Ontario a beacon for other governments racing to save their most valued natural spaces.
June 2 is the last chance to stop incendiary actions pushing the province to the edge of environmental ruin.
Caledon advocate and former federal candidate for the Green Party Jenni Le Forestier has doggedly held her local elected officials accountable for the damaging decisions some have made while doing the bidding of powerful developers who dictate so much of the local planning across the 905. She believes taxpayers need to be given far more information about the powerful industry lobby group that dictates more and more of the decision making around how their communities are being shaped.
Brampton West’s Amarjot Sandhu was nothing short of a disgrace in the eyes of many constituents: charged and convicted for operating illegal basement apartments; failing to show up for an official Remembrance Day ceremony and taking votes that hurt residents in his riding who expressed shock at the treatment by their elected representative. Sandhu had a record of inaction on a wide range of Brampton’s central issues including healthcare, police carding and auto-insurance discrimination.
For Brampton South residents there is a drastic divide between their priorities and the recent representation inside Queen’s Park.
As soon as he won their support in 2018 Prabmeet Sarkaria made it clear, he was not loyal to the constituents who put him in office, he would instead follow whatever Doug Ford and the PC Party told him to do. He refused to support desperately needed healthcare expansion in his own city, he pushed Highway 413, and ignored postal code discrimination in the auto-insurance sector.
Elected in 2018 to represent Brampton South for the Progressive Conservatives, Prabmeet Sarkaria was a firm ally of Doug Ford, toeing the party line.
He refused to support desperately needed healthcare expansion in his own city, he pushed Highway 413, did little to advocate for more local resources during the pandemic and would not support 10 paid sick days for the essential workers in his own riding.
The city’s ongoing healthcare crisis has been well documented. For four years the Ford government, including its two Brampton PC MPPs, Prabmeet Sarkaria and Amarjot Sandhu, failed to respond to the medical needs of the city’s 700,000 residents. Brampton suffered some of the worst infection rates in the country through the first three waves of the pandemic, while per capita resources for testing were among the lowest in Ontario. Meanwhile, demands to build a second full-service hospital with at least 850 acute-care beds were ignored, as Ford instead funded a massive new hospital in Mississauga. The former head of critical care at Brampton Civic Hospital says the city's voters should reject the Ford PCs on Thursday.
With the promise, or threat of Highway 413 on the horizon, Brampton East residents will get to choose between candidates who want to see the sprawling 400-series corridor built just above their community and those committed to stopping the project before it starts.
During Gurratan Singh’s term as Brampton East MPP he was one of Ontario’s most outspoken legislators, regularly fighting for measures to end postal code discrimination within the auto insurance sector, advocating for better healthcare funding in his city along with a host of other priorities he brought to the forefront.
A hotly contested provincial riding between the NDP and Progressive Conservatives, with incumbent Sara Singh facing a fierce challenge from Brampton City Councillor Charmaine Williams, makes Brampton Centre one of the most interesting races to watch in all of Ontario.
During her term representing Brampton Centre at Queen’s Park, Sara Singh was an advocate for smaller class sizes, climate change mitigation strategies and action to increase healthcare capacity in the City of Brampton.
It’s becoming increasingly clear how badly Peel’s social services have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how long it could take to recover.
Reports related to a lack of funding for mental health and addictions in Peel detail how only one in three residents will get the help they need in a time of crisis, as work on the opioid strategy was stalled during the pandemic. Overdose deaths have continued to increase but when will regional councillors take responsibility for funding critically needed social services they have neglected for years?
A motion by Brampton Council has resulted in a referral to the Integrity Commissioner to investigate Councillor Rowena Santos, after questioning of a staff member around the processes surrounding the controversial Brampton University project led to claims that she harassed a senior employee, Gurdeep (Nikki) Kaur.
Doug Ford is calling his campaign bus the “Yes Express”, a play on his campaign promise to “say yes” to new infrastructure for a prosperous future. The environment, on the other hand, will suffer dearly under his plans.
A coalition of environmental groups is calling on Ford and all party leaders to ban highways through the Greenbelt—by altering the legislation that governs the protected greenspace.
The Ontario NDP, Greens and, until recently, the Liberals have been very clear about where they stand on the PCs environmentally destructive Highway 413 project—if elected, the 400-series highway proposal will be relegated to the scrap heap.
But over the last two weeks, a Liberal candidate in Brampton East has drawn criticism for claiming the Liberals only plan to delay the project and will “definitely build the highway”, a departure from the position of her Party.
A forensic audit was ordered Wednesday by Brampton council to look into the mishandling of $629,000 for the failed Brampton University plan, following a staff report showing much of the work was never received and some of it arrived 17 months late, while at least one of the two firms was not qualified for the lucrative job.
Questions have also been raised about the quality of the work that was done.
World events over the last two years had a direct impact on solicitor general Sylvia Jones, who served as MPP for Dufferin-Caledon over the last term. She was forced to balance upheaval in public health and safety with the needs of her local constituents.
In the relatively young, politically ambiguous riding of Brampton North, Ontario’s big party leaders are all making significant moves for a seat they clearly see as ready for the taking.
With just over 50 percent of the registered voters turning up to cast a ballot in 2018, a significant get-out-the-vote effort to mobilize residents could be the difference on June 2.
Subverting the CPC leadership race by trading memberships for empty promises, is how Patrick Brown plans to inflate point totals for the September 10 election, using a loophole he admittedly exploits. He treats unwitting Canadians seeking political representation like pawns in his dangerous game.
Despite numerous complaints, the Ontario Ombudsman will not be investigating allegations of corruption and mismanagement made public last year; in a letter to council, senior counsel for the Ombudsman cites the fact that many of the senior staff identified in the allegations are no longer working for the City.
A collective of over 40 organizations is calling on Doug Ford and other provincial leaders to make equitable funding for education, healthcare and public safety in Peel a priority after the June election.
The riding of Dufferin-Caledon has been held by the PCs for decades.
But with more residents placing environmental concerns at the top of their priority list, and a large section of the Greenbelt that runs through the riding at risk from Doug Ford’s Highway 413 plan, could these issues be enough to swing voters on June 2?
The man responsible for the crash that killed a Caledon mother and her three daughters has been handed one of the steepest sentences for impaired driving in Ontario’s history, marking a potential turning point for the courts to impose stricter penalties on those getting behind the wheel while impaired.
Speaking outside the court after the sentencing, family members of those killed in the crash said no sentence would have been strong enough.
Conducted over the past two years by Williams HR Consulting, the full 62-page report examining working conditions inside Brampton City Hall shows anti-Black issues in various departments across the country’s ninth largest municipal government.
The review, which was finally made public this week, despite being submitted to the since fired CAO in December, provides disturbing insights into the experiences of many Black employees.
Peel’s official plan, approved by council at the end of April, opens up nearly 11,000 acres of farmland and greenspace for future development, locking in development on land desperately needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Now, a report has been released stating that Peel’s lack of action on climate change is compromising its climate mitigation goals—putting public health and infrastructure at considerable risk.
After over $629,000 was paid out over the last few years to consultants directly linked to Brown and Santos for preliminary work to launch the now abandoned Brampton University project, a City report shows staff are unable to locate any evidence of many of the deliverables being completed.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was in the city Friday, promising that, if elected, her government would finally build Brampton’s second full-service hospital, and, unlike the PCs, she will not demand a local-share contribution the cash-strapped municipality simply cannot afford.
An update on the Region of Peel’s climate strategy reveals that across the board, the municipality is failing to take action fast enough to reach its council-approved targets.
At the City of Brampton, an alarming new report reveals that almost half of the work consultants were paid for on the maligned BramptonU project was never delivered.
Peel Public Health shares concerns about lack of resources to resume needed programming while still managing COVID.
Relying on faulty reasoning, misleading information and a short-sighted “vision”, Peel councillors approved a plan to unlock nearly 11,000 acres of land in the region for growth over the next three decades.
The give over to developers completely disregards science that connects poor land-use planning with climate change, and goes against every environmental policy the Region has previously approved.
The architect of the world’s most comprehensive piece of legislation aimed at protecting one specific ecologically vital greenspace says Doug Ford and his PC government are turning back two decades of progress.
Ontario’s Greenbelt Act, passed almost twenty years ago, is a master plan to ensure we grow sustainably, avoiding the pitfalls of sprawl, congestion and economic suffocation created by the developer-driven policies Ford is hell-bent on pushing through.
Everyone has the chance to become a farmer, all residents need are some soil, seeds and patience. The City of Mississauga is hoping to harness momentum on its urban agriculture strategy encouraging more people to grow their own food. Allowing a pilot for backyard hens is one piece of the puzzle to see if food insecurity and greenhouse gas emissions might be simultaneously tackled by the rapidly spreading urban agriculture movement.
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.
