After several months of delays, the case against two former Peel CAS employees charged with defrauding the organization of a combined $250,000 is moving forward. Former director of finance Marino Cader will appear in court for a pre-trial hearing on July 31.
Andre Paul, the organization’s former maintenance coordinator and the co-accused in the case, will appear in court on September 18. Peel CAS has faced more than three years of scrutiny after widespread mismanagement under former CEO Rav Bains was exposed.
Bill C-226 has sparked awareness of environmental racism across Canada. It is an injustice that continues to plague Indigenous, Black and other marginalized communities. The Bill’s passage would be a significant step toward justice, after decades of harm to people forced to drink dirty water, live alongside poisoned lakes and contaminated industrial sites. For Ingrid Waldron, a champion of the environmental racism education and activist movement in Canada, legislation to stop institutionalized harm is long overdue. Meanwhile, Bill S-5 just passed, possibly leading to legal precedents for the protection of environmental rights.
As the need for locally grown produce, wheat and other food staples becomes more and more critical, to reduce the cost of what we eat, dramatically shrink our carbon footprint and to practice sustainable ways of living, the Doug Ford PC government continues to move Ontario backward, writes the architect of the province’s Greenbelt plan, Victor Doyle.
After a harrowing 2019 report revealed Peel paramedics experience violence at an alarming rate while out in the field saving lives and treating the injured, superintendent Mandy Johnston has made it her mandate to shift a culture that frowns on reporting cases of harassment and violence. She and many others want to change the status quo, that it’s just “part of the job.”
Critical services like housing and shelter beds for those experiencing intimate partner violence in Peel have been underfunded for much of the last decade.
Now, regional councillors, spurred by newly elected members, are moving beyond symbolic gestures and declarations, with the approval in principle of $250,000 in next year’s budget to help survivors.
Pocket dials are costing communicators—responsible for getting emergency calls to police, fire, or ambulance—precious time that could be the difference between life or death. SOS settings in smartphones initially designed to help alert others when the owner needs help, are causing serious problems for frontline emergency services staff.
These poorly designed smartphone features are clogging 911 call centres around the globe, and in Peel, the people who direct first responders are spending almost half their time dealing with misplaced calls or ones that have nothing to do with an emergency.
Peel Police tell The Pointer that fire-related injuries were not what caused the trauma suffered by an elderly resident who was renting a basement unit in a Brampton house.
A man who lives in the same home where the fatality took place has been charged with second-degree murder and he remains in police custody.
Among all of the stressors of growing up in the 21st century, climate change tops the list for causing anxiety in youth. While this type of stress can be debilitating, experts and young climate advocates say channeling this fear into action can have a monumental impact.
After a limited survey was carried out in Brampton to understand the municipal responsibilities most important to residents, Council has placed a third hospital (it still does not have a second one), sustainability and improving community safety as top priorities for the current term.
With a poor track record on these initiatives, and a strapped budget to implement new projects, council members will need to change their ways in order to accomplish what Brampton desperately needs.
The Region of Peel is considering emergency action to address its ongoing affordable housing crisis, following the failure of its last two plans.
Despite a policy to never turn away anyone looking for emergency shelter, officials admit more than 300 people over a recent two-week period were denied a bed, as facilities continue to operate beyond capacity. New council members are pushing their veteran colleagues to finally do something about the dire situation.
Despite a growing workload and limited resources, Peel’s Internet Child Exploitation unit saw incredible success in 2022, identifying and saving more child victims from further sexual exploitation online than in any previous year.
The good news story is tainted by the reality of our time, as ICE units across the country grapple with an exponential increase in online abuse.
In a city plagued by fire fatalities, Brampton’s latest tragedy has led to a criminal investigation after an 80-year-old man renting a basement unit died following a July 2 fire. His roommate has been charged with arson and second-degree murder.
The circumstances around the case remain unclear, but there is no legal basement apartment at the address on the City’s official list of registered secondary suites.
In the face of increasing overdose deaths across the Region, Peel councillors have approved the location for a safe consumption site in Brampton’s Bramalea neighbourhood.
The facility is planned to open in the fall and will offer life-saving services for Peel’s drug-using population.
Staff and councillors have exposed the ill-conceived, and illegal, motion by Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown for the Region of Peel to take out $11 billion of debt.
Brown claimed the debt is necessary to build infrastructure to solve the housing crisis, but staff explained that much debt—more than double the amount taken out in a single year by every municipality in Canada combined—is simply impossible and would financially cripple the region, with taxpayers burdened by about $2,000 more every year to pay for Brown’s plan.
A $14 million investment made by the PC government to support conservation efforts is being praised as a crucial step forward for sustainability. However, the funds come alongside cuts Doug Ford has made to conservation authorities, impacting their ability to shape a more sustainable future.
Through a recent notice of motion, Mississauga Councillor Alvin Tedjo is looking to change an existing City by-law that prohibits residents from playing on City streets. The motion asks staff to review the existing by-law, which has been in place for over two decades, and make amendments so children and others can indulge in their favourite outdoor pastime, such as street hockey, in their own neighbourhood.
A recent report from Peel Regional Police revealed the number of reported hate-motivated crime offences across Mississauga and Brampton increased by seven percent between 2021 and 2022. While advocacy groups say the numbers are troubling, they are no longer shocking. They attribute the steady rise in cases to digital echo chambers like social media that create large spaces to fuel hate crimes in communities, including in Peel.
Environment Canada released its climate outlook for the summer which predicted particularly hot temperatures that have now set in across much of the province. Ontario’s electricity grid has to expand and the PC government on Wednesday announced the largest new nuclear project in decades. But alternative energy sources such as solar and wind are falling behind the global take-up of greener electricity supply.
Peel Regional Police, in partnership with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, recently revealed a draft document of recommendations to address and dismantle systemic racism and discrimination in the regional police force, which has been under public scrutiny for years for not reflecting the community it serves. Racial profiling, discriminatory hiring and the refusal to promote deserving visible minority officers forced the Commission to intervene. The recommendations, 64 in total, are a culmination of work that began in 2020 to develop and implement strategies to identify and address systemic discrimination within the force after a 2019 report revealed a disturbing culture operating within one of the most diverse regions in the world.
Ontarians waste a great deal of food.
It’s a sad reality as the cost of staple items skyrockets, and a growing number of families are unable to put enough on their table. Wasted food comes with significant financial and environmental costs that are becoming increasingly hard to ignore for municipalities and corporations.
Gender-based violence has been labelled an “epidemic” in the Region of Peel.
While elected officials have strong words of support for advocates dedicated to ending the violence and helping survivors, they stopped short of providing any financial assistance to the cash-strapped organizations.
Mississauga’s Living Green Master Plan, which guided the City’s sustainability actions, is set to retire after a decade-long run. City staff have assured council and residents that Mississauga is not backtracking on action, in fact they are pushing ahead full throttle with further contributions to the Climate Change Master Plan and more specific and detailed plans throughout City departments that will help tackle some of the top priorities for climate mitigation and adaptation.
A grassroots organization calling for stricter penalties when municipal council members are caught abusing their oath of office wants Brampton to support legislation that was recently introduced at Queen’s Park.
In 2018 the city’s mayor was accused by two young women of sexually assaulting them (he denies the allegations) and has been dogged throughout his career by accusations of behaving inappropriately with young women.
Patrick Brown urged regional staff to break the law through a motion that would have saddled Peel taxpayers with $11 billion of debt. Despite the absurdity of taking on such a crippling debt load, Brown argued the step was necessary to battle the ongoing housing crisis. That was until the true purpose of his motion became clear.
He was criticized for attempting to squeeze Mississauga into paying for Brampton’s future infrastructure needs (while refusing to expand his own city’s budget since being elected in 2018) after Peel’s dissolution.
Leading Mississauga Fire through one of the most challenging periods in its history, Chief Deryn Rizzi has stepped up to the task, with finesse. She is a dynamic force who was just named Ontario Fire Chief of the Year for the work MFES has done to keep residents in a booming city safe. Improving the department she took over in 2021, while tight finances and hyper-growth create ongoing problems, is a responsibility she seems perfectly suited for.
Provincial politicians arrived at the annual general meeting of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario to deliver praise for a profession that has suffered with low wages and crushing workloads for years.
While the PC health minister refused to acknowledge the role her government has had in this crisis, including their ongoing fight to preserve legislation that was labelled unconstitutional by the courts and has kept wages for nurses well below the rate of inflation for the last three years, opposition leaders took quick aim at the majority government’s track record, often to raucous applause from the nurses in attendance.
A non-profit organization breaking ground in Peel is hoping to strengthen climate initiatives across the region.
While the group hopes to propel Mississauga further down its path to sustainability and help Brampton revitalize its lagging environmental efforts, two major pieces of provincial legislation forced by the PC government will drastically hamper these efforts.
Brampton is falling behind other GTHA cities in efforts to protect tenants from exploitation at the hands of landlords as more and more are displaced from their homes.
ACORN, a province-wide tenant organization, appeared before council members to highlight issues making Brampton one of the most expensive rental markets in Canada. Solutions, the group says, are available.
Nine months after the provincial government issued an MZO for a sprawling warehouse development along Torbram Road in Caledon’s southeast end, the applicant, Rice Group, is holding public meetings to hear the concerns of residents.
Constituents want to know why they were not part of any consultation on the development before its approval, and feel they are only now being included as part of the lip service by those responsible for their treatment.
Brampton residents are demanding answers after a home builder was supposed to protect wildlife in wetland areas that were approved to be drained to accommodate future construction. Instead, fish and other species that populated the local ecosystems were left to die without the proper management the developer was supposed to oversee.
Neighbourhood members want to know why requirements were not followed.
With only four months until the end of Caledon’s one year interim control bylaw limiting aggregate operations, residents and councillors are cracking down on town staff to complete necessary studies and policy upgrades within the remaining time. The Town has taken the steps to hire an outside consultant and develop an aggregate community working group. A review provided to the Town by the Region of Peel surprised residents, suggesting Caledon’s aggregate situation is far better than what the evidence suggests.
A councillor is working to forge community connections at a time when municipal engagement is hitting historically low levels. After coming onto council last year and finding out the area he represents only had one residents’ association, Ward 6 Councillor Joe Horneck has made it a priority to bridge the gap between residents and municipal government.
Almost 20 years after being promised a second hospital, the Phase-2 plan to expand Peel Memorial is still light on details and years away from seeing construction begin, while projects in cities across the GTA with much better per capita hospital bed numbers have leapfrogged ahead of Brampton which continues to suffer a healthcare crisis.
As Mississauga’s municipal leaders navigate the city’s independence from Peel Region, councillors say a byelection would be the best option to replace Mayor Bonnie Crombie. She made her candidacy for the Ontario Liberal leadership official on Wednesday. Calls are mounting for her to step down as the head of Ontario’s third largest city as it faces historic decisions.
The community of Malton — a displaced island isolated from the rest of Mississauga, between the airport and Brampton’s borders — has historically been an outlier, disconnected from the rest of the city. A new project decades in the making is finally going to change that.
While smoke is hanging low across much of the country, Canadians are calling on the federal government for details on how a net-zero electricity grid will be achieved by 2035. A massive deep water drilling project planned by two European oil giants off the east coast has been delayed for three years — environmental groups continue to question why the federal Liberals support a project that sets our clean energy policies back by decades.
The PC government wants legislation to better protect those suffering from intimate partner violence. A motion by MPP Christine Hogarth seeks to create Ontario’s own version of “Clare’s Law” which allows individuals to obtain information from police about their partner’s abusive past. A local organization wants new tools in the province to address intimate partner violence, but says there is a lack of resources to properly support those who come forward for help.
Despite the PC government scaling back portions of Bill 97 that would have allowed the carving up of valuable farmland, concerns remain high among environmental and agricultural organizations that significant risks remain after Premier Doug Ford revealed his true feelings about Ontario’s Greenbelt, labelling the world’s largest collection of protected greenspace nothing more than “a scam”.
Small businesses on Main and Queen Streets in downtown Brampton are looking for support as regional construction projects continue to plague the city centre.
Further anxiety has been triggered by the provincial decision to dissolve the Region of Peel and whether it will cause even more delays for critical work in the downtown core.
A report coming before regional council Thursday is aiming to provide transparency and establish principles that staff can use to proceed with already approved programs and projects in the wake of the PC government’s Hazel McCallion Act, which seeks to dissolve the Region of Peel by 2025.
The report notes that preventing staff from leaving during the transition process will need to be a top priority.
The Region of Peel worries about staff retention as the break-up of the upper-tier government is set to get underway.
Caledon is staring up a steep slope to reach its goal of net zero by 2050.
A program dedicated to helping Peel families and their newborns has been drastically underfunded for 15 years. Increased investment from the provincial government remains uncertain.
Wildfires are burning across the country, with forecasts predicting much of the country will be covered by a haze of smoke by early morning Wednesday.
Climate experts have been warning about the dangerous ripple effects of increasing wildfires for years. The degraded air quality across much of Peel Tuesday, may only be the beginning.
After being denied the opportunity to delegate at the Peel District School Board’s trustee meeting, community members finally had a chance to speak out against the removal of Kola Iluyomade’s name from the centre for Black excellence at one of its committee meetings. A written delegation falsely accused advocates at the previous week’s board meeting of being “violent” while trustees are claiming a changed policy prevents them from using Iluyomade’s name, despite the actual intent of the policy to recognize equity advocates just like him.
A new program from the PC government is mandating naloxone kits in “high risk” workplaces in Ontario.
It’s a welcome measure that could help to mitigate the opioid crisis that is killing a disturbing number of Ontarians every year. It remains unclear exactly how many employers will be required to carry the life-saving medication.
A new report from Ontario’s auditor general exposes the declining health of the province’s greenspaces and wildlife.
It’s a report the PCs have refused to mention, highlighting the failure of this government to protect the environment and battle climate change.
The Ontario Health Coalition announced results of a regional and province-wide survey on the privatization of healthcare in Ontario after the PCs passed a new delivery model that will allow private clinics to perform certain procedures covered by the province’s publicly funded system.
Critics warn this will eventually lead to a two-tier system that will benefit the rich and marginalize low-income earners.
Bill 97 has been tabled to help build 1.5 million homes by 2031 but conservation authorities and municipalities are encouraging the PC government to make changes to the proposed legislation that will create a more uniform approach to development across Ontario municipalities while curtailing carbon-emitting sprawl.
On Thursday, the PCs walked back plans to divide up farmland for future development.
News of the PC government’s decision to break apart Peel Region was met with mixed reviews. Mississauga celebrated, Brampton lamented, and Caledon was left with more questions than answers.
Now, all three municipalities are looking to the provincial government for more information about the unprecedented decision to dissolve regional government in Peel.
Trustees at the Peel District School Board may have already voted to ignore a vow to honour late activist Kola Iluyomade by attaching his name to the future Centre for Black Excellence, but that’s not stopping advocates from continuing their effort to see PDSB make good on its promise.
The oldest structure in south Mississauga, Lakeview Park School, is for sale, and without protection from the Heritage Act, if it isn’t scooped up by the City or another public body, it runs the risk of being demolished.
As the Region of Peel is set to dissolve by 2025, there are a lot of unanswered questions about its current climate change plans and how the two independent cities of Brampton and Mississauga will fare fighting climate change without the support of an upper-tier government.
