In 2020 alone, Mississauga has seen one film studio open and two more announced. The trend means the city is on course to offer as much indoor filming space as Toronto. As the GTA film industry continues to boom, studio space is increasingly rare and represents a golden opportunity for Mississauga to get in on the lucrative world of Hollywood North. Another suburban area, halfway around the world, used film investment to launch Bollywood’s explosion into popular culture and create dynamic upscale boroughs that now overshadow central Mumbai.
A report by the City of Brampton’s integrity commissioner into Councillor Gurpreet Dhillon was released Friday. It details allegations of sexual misconduct during a City-sanctioned trip to Turkey in 2019.
Dhillon denies the allegations, questions the commissioner’s investigation and has launched legal action to have the report thrown out.
The Pointer talks to the Mississauga legend whose accomplishments still remain frozen in time. Paul Henderson's historic winning goal in the 1972 Canada-Soviet Union Summit Series is regarded as our greatest sports moment in the 20th century. Some want him in the Hockey Hall Of Fame, as recognition of what he represents to this country, but Mississauga’s 77-year-old hockey icon never rested on his laurels, and has since scored other “goals” that he considers even more significant.
Long-term care staff and the government agree, the system has been broken for decades. Countless reports and commissions calling for action have rang out for years, but few changes have been made.
Even in the short term, it’s likely that thousands of seniors – our most vulnerable citizens – will once again be in a deadly situation if another wave of the virus hits and overworked, under resourced staff are unable to provide proper care.
After a highly anticipated announcement Thursday, Premier Doug Ford confirmed most students will be back in the classroom five days a week in the fall. The news comes after school boards were asked to prepare for three different outcomes for September.
Two new research papers, one Canadian and one from the U.S., offer differing findings about the risk of viral spread by children at school.
Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon will all move to Stage 3 of Ontario’s reopening plan first thing Friday. It will allow indoor dining, fitness centres and movie theatres to reopen, among other loosening restrictions.
Recent cases in the region have trended down, but mass gatherings in Brampton over the weekend pose problems to reopening, testing and tracing.
New money from the federal and provincial government will help Brampton improve its existing transit fleet.
Yet no commitments for increasing services have been made, despite residents raising concerns months ago about overcrowding on local buses.
Daniel Amsler, a paralegal in Mississauga, told The Pointer he fears the impact of Bill 184.
Evictions for tenants who have fallen behind on rent could allow landlords to hike their rates and lead to an even worse affordability crisis in the city.
A strategy designed to connect youth and police at local high schools left many feeling threatened and divided and has now been paused by Peel Regional Police.
The significant step is the first concrete action taken by the force and new Chief Nishan Duraiappah who has promised “systemic change” across the organization.
While certain violent crimes have spiked in Peel, the majority are being committed by a “small subset” of the population associated with gangs. Two men were recently arrested in connection with September’s brazen mass shooting, which left a teenage bystander dead.
With calls to defund police organizations across the globe, Peel’s chief says his organization is trying to shift toward a community-centric model of policing, but it remains unclear how that change will occur.
The spread of the novel coronavirus has highlighted the inconsistent support available for international students across Mississauga and Brampton. Some have been kicked out of their homes while others face mental breakdowns.
Support from higher levels of government, which are actively involved in the lucrative process to bring these students here, has been almost non-existent.
In Mississauga and Brampton politicians have talked about climate change for years, taking slow steps to address the issue. When COVID-19 hit, Bonnie Crombie, Patrick Brown and Doug Ford all demonstrated how rapid a crisis response can be. It remains to be seen if those lessons can be focused back on the environment.
The Wayfair child trafficking conspiracy has grabbed the public spotlight and continues to take attention away from what human trafficking really looks like.
Criminal activity in Peel and Ontario highlights the need to address the growing crisis in our own backyard.
Regional councillors were between a rock and a hard place when passing a motion to delay hundreds of millions for approved projects for up to five years.
The specific projects pushed to the back burner remain to be identified, but the move had to be made because of major losses in development revenue.
The Ministry of Education has announced funding to build 30 new schools and expand 15 more. Two of the new facilities will be in Brampton, with two others also set for expansion in Peel.
The news has been welcomed by local leaders in a region where student overcrowding has been a concern for years.
A sense of frustration is in the air as the region remains in the second stage of the province’s reopening plan, with no indication of when it will be welcomed into the third.
The issue is not a simple fix and epidemiologists stress it runs deeper than washing your hands and standing six feet apart.
Peel District School Board has released details of its plans to reopen schools in September, but cannot stipulate if children will be at home, in the classroom or both.
As they wait anxiously for answers from the province, parents are juggling work, childcare and education with fears around their kids’ safety.
Twice in 2020, councillors at the Region of Peel voted to defer a decision on a questionable development in the southwest of Caledon that does not align with smart growth principles.
Unhappy with the delay, the Town and its pro-sprawl council members went straight to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who overruled the region. But some are concerned about safety issues and critics don’t understand the rush on a critical development that could be a domino for more bad planning.
The incident left unbelievable amounts of guilt and questions for a family who lost their loved one in an instant, but they’re determined to keep his name alive.
Stressed parents, anxious kids and nothing to do in a house sounds like a recipe for disaster. Ontario parents might have to endure more of the same in September as schools grapple with hybrid models for in-person classes.
Peel faces unique challenges with $3.7 million in decreased funding for childcare programs, potentially leading to affordable daycare closures when parents need it most.
Jillian McLeod has heard from numerous families who have lost loved ones in dangerous driving accidents and is frustrated that stricter punishments aren’t being pursued.
In an effort to influence change and deter such behaviour she’s taken measures into her own hands.
When COVID-19 closures were imminent in March, religious organizations were forced to think on their feet to ensure faith-based practices were made available as people were forced to isolate.
Now, even though numerous places of worship have opened their doors and others are following suit, technology will continue to play an important role.
With physical distancing measures in place, many homeless individuals are using tents in public spaces as their best option to stay safe.
A recent UN report warns Canadians that the issue is only going to get worse. Meanwhile, complaints of questionable behaviour are rising, and without proper resources to deal with these temporary living options the spread of the novel coronavirus is compounding the problem.
At the end of June, Brampton’s high COVID-19 case numbers were much to blame for Peel’s delayed and questionable entrance into Stage 2.
Now, with the city still seeing the vast majority of the region’s new cases, could it be left behind when other parts of Peel are able to reopen?
Last year saw a drop in crimes committed by young people across the Region of Peel.
Behind the positive trend, teenagers continue to be caught in gang violence. In Mississauga, one councillor is working on a project aimed at keeping young people on the right track from an early age.
Council members remained silent when staff pointed out a major dilemma facing the plan to introduce speed-calming photo radar cameras across the city: a lack of available judicial resources means the cameras would lead to too many tickets for the overburdened local provincial court to handle.
It’s one of many conundrums facing councillors who voted unanimously to move forward with the multi-million dollar project.
When the novel coronavirus ravaged the homes caring for some of the most vulnerable people in the province, many asked why proper protections weren’t put in place earlier.
Some advocates in Peel are asking similar questions about how to stop the rapidly rising rates of elder abuse.
Last week Education Minister Stephen Lecce released more details of the PC government’s plan to destream students who have previously been placed into educational pathways that deny them of future opportunities.
The move came after the province found PDSB routinely harmed Black and other visible minority students by unfairly placing them into “applied” streams that do not lead to university or college.
After years of back and forth, the City has approved work for the withering area in partnership with the Region of Peel, which is emphasizing the need for improvements. It’s a story downtown business owners have heard before, only to see City Hall ignore its responsibilities, leaving some wondering if change will ever come.
The Mississauga Steelheads are one of Ontario’s feeder teams, a place where young hockey players learn the ropes and work toward their dream of playing in the NHL.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has robbed future stars of precious development minutes and thrown plans into disarray.
Many police organizations will not argue that more money needs to be directed to social programming, which is the core ideology behind the “defund” movement.
However, for specialized teams battling increasingly complex, and increasingly common crimes like Peel police’s Internet Child Exploitation unit, defunding could make an already desperate situation even worse.
Since March, medical experts have made clear that the best way to contain an outbreak of COVID-19 is to test, test, test.
With Brampton continuing to be a hotspot for the virus in Ontario, the William Osler Health System has only run one screening facility in the city, while it has managed two in neighbouring Etobicoke which has little more than half the population.
The proposed construction of Highway 413 between Milton and Vaughan has been an extremely divisive issue for residents and environmental campaigners.
The developer-driven project was scrapped in 2018 by Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government, before the PCs revived it immediately after taking office. Now, despite its route along one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in Southern Ontario, they are pushing legislation to speed up the highway’s Environmental Assessment so it can be built faster.
As the city begins to contemplate how to deal with the financial impact of the pandemic, the first report on the 2021 budget outlines a number of options.
They include things never discussed before, such as redirecting capital contributions to other crucial needs, and pausing tax levies that collect much needed funds for transit and infrastructure projects.
The lion’s share of Mississauga’s population is not white, a reality not reflected in its council composition or senior leadership at City Hall. A diversity and inclusion committee established to hear marginalized voices has had meetings cancelled due to a lack of attendance while the municipal government has failed to properly reflect one of Canada’s most cosmopolitan cities.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce this week said the province plans to end streaming in Grade 9 and stop suspensions of younger students across Ontario.
However, critics say the move is a political play to capitalize on calls for change and argue it has not been properly planned.
Despite increasing disparities between the number of constituents each Brampton councillor represents, as the city’s population continues to mushroom in certain areas, a motion to alter Ward boundaries landed with a thud.
Council decided not to move forward with changes that would align political representation with future growth, to ensure all constituents get an equal level of service.
Through the month of June, Brampton continued to struggle in its fight against the novel coronavirus. Poor testing and results that refused to trend downward plagued the city. In the face of the worrying numbers local health officials green lit the reopening of patios, hairdressers, leisure facilities and other businesses. The question is: why?
Anti-Black racism and other forms of potentially devastating discrimination within the Peel District School Board have been a feature of the organization for decades. Parents, many of whom were hurt by PDSB a generation ago, were relieved when the province took over governance of the board and former director Peter Joshua was promptly dismissed, but some say sweeping reform will still be a battle.
In 2018, the Liberals scrapped a highway that had been planned to run between Milton and Vaughan. The project was shown by experts to be an environmental disaster that did little to alleviate congestion.
However, after taking office, Doug Ford immediately revived the developer-driven plan. But now, with transportation patterns around the world thrown upside down by the pandemic, the new highway makes even less sense.
The federal Department of Justice dubs the number of hate crimes never reported as “dark figures”, with reason to believe such incidents are on the rise. It’s a trend seen in areas across the world, and a recent report says Mississauga and Brampton are commonly hit by these disturbing acts of intolerance, in two cities where people of different backgrounds share the same spaces in every facet of life. Social media, particularly Facebook, has allowed hate to flourish around the world.
Conservation Authorities play a vital supporting role in many municipal environmental projects.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created financial uncertainty for these organizations, and it’s putting further strain on the Region of Peel.
A raft of human traffic charges around the world, including in Ontario, has highlighted how brazen criminals are taking advantage of the pandemic. While drug and gun smuggling have been thwarted by the air and border restrictions, domestic and international human trafficking have continued unhampered.
Peel is the epicentre for the heinous crime in Ontario, but service providers and the Region of Peel have been forced to delay efforts to help survivors, leaving many without the help they need.
Public health officials have made clear that regions and cities need two weeks of consistent decline in new COVID numbers before it’s safe to loosen social distancing restrictions. In many parts of Peel this is not happening despite the lifting of safety measures that creates a much rosier picture.
The region continues to struggle with new cases of COVID-19. Data from the tail end of June shows Peel experiencing levels of infection similar to those in Toronto, despite having half its population.
The affordable housing crisis across much of Peel is getting worse.
In a recent staff report, the Region admits it can’t handle the problem, and points to higher levels of government as the solution. But it leaves out a key fact – council’s repeated unwillingness to allocate funds for housing because it simply isn’t a priority for Peel’s highly-paid elected officials.
Peel police officers will be equipped with body-worn cameras soon, after members of the board that governs the force voted to adopt the technology.
The move, touted to improve transparency and accountability, came during a meeting Friday that saw almost 100 letters sent by community members, most calling for police reform or defunding, which the board chose not to address, for now.
Nine years ago, the Region of Peel presented ideas to improve Brampton’s aging downtown infrastructure to help revitalize the withering area. Backtracking on projects and a lack of political will to fund them put plans on hold for almost a decade.
More permanent projects for the downtown core are still being discussed, but the region can no longer wait, and has proposed a temporary solution that might have to be redone depending on the city’s LRT decision.
After months in battle with the novel coronavirus some long-term care homes won’t be getting a break any time soon.
Numerous homes caring for Peel's seniors have suffered from tragic outbreaks, some more than once, with homes appearing on the list in recent weeks for a second time, despite measures to keep COVID-19 out of these vulnerable spaces.
Darren John says he’s been harassed by the police and stopped hundreds of times while going about his daily life. Dozens of charges against him have either been dropped or he’s beaten them in court. Sometimes judges have displayed overt discrimination toward him.
His story, an extreme example of the treatment many people face at the hands of police just for being Black, highlights systemic issues within the criminal justice system that might finally be overcome by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Healthcare is a necessity, a foundation of society. When COVID arrived to shake up our lives many industries had to adapt. Canada’s universal health care is praised by people around the world, however, there are some glaring areas in need of improvement that physicians, nurses and administrators have known about for years. The pandemic has sped up the race to get better, and it all starts with technology.
