Hidden in the shadow of Toronto, Mississauga does not always get the attention it deserves, says Mississauga—Lakeshore candidate Michael Ras.
After the pandemic upended many lives financially and strained the mental health of thousands across the city, he says now is the time for those in Ottawa to address the city’s specific needs.
After being reelected in 2019, Sven Spengemann promised to bring needed transit and affordable housing funds to his riding of Mississauga—Lakeshore. Over two years, he only spoke of public transportation once and never said the words, “affordable housing” in Parliament.
Instead, he focused on climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and bringing attention to the contributions of members of his community who had passed on.
While preparing to teach a course on law and the environment, Mark Davidson was shocked by Canada’s poor track record on environmental protection.
Running for the Greens in Mississauga—Malton, Davidson acknowledges he might not know everything about being an MP, but as someone closely connected to people in his community, he vows to solve the problems they face, while tackling the looming threat of climate change.
The broad issue of climate change comes up daily during this short campaign contest. What national leaders don’t offer are concrete actions they would take on specific projects, if elected prime minister.
Currently, Highway 413 sits in limbo as an assessment ordered by the Liberal government hangs in the balance until a new government makes a decision on how the review will proceed and whether or not the ruling party commits to either salvaging the massive highway project or abandoning it for good. Each candidate’s stance could impact how Peel residents vote on September 20.
The New Democrats have a young leader who is clearly targeting young voters. His tactics on social media, PR-style promotions—Punjabi poutine anyone?—and slate of youthful candidates appeal to many millennial voters.
The NDP platform includes plenty of broad themes, many related to pressing issues in Peel, but Jagmeet Singh continues to confound those looking for details such as how affordable housing will be paid for and what he intends to do, specifically, to improve healthcare for all Canadians.
The goal of young Liberal candidate Iqwinder Gaheer is to meet and speak with as many people as possible over the days leading up to the election.
He hopes to address affordable housing, climate change and child care in Ottawa, if elected. Coming from a working-class family Gaheer shared with The Pointer why after two years practicing law he switched paths to pursue a career in public life.
Data that has been labelled “deeply troubling” by an expert hired by Peel Regional Police has many community members demanding immediate action by police leadership to address anti-Black racism within the force.
At the same time, police board members fumbled a request to form an anti-Black racism committee, despite needing to rebuild trust with Black communities now more than ever.
The incumbent for Mississauga Centre is seeking a third consecutive term in Ottawa, after losing his seat in 2008 following his brief rookie-run as an MP.
Over the past two years, Alghabra has seen his profile rise dramatically with his appointment to cabinet. He has spoken and voted as a loyal caucus member, saying he prefers to elevate local concerns within the party structure instead of airing conflicts in public.
NDP candidate Teneshia Samuel has a background working as an equity consultant and in recruitment for the banking sector.
They promise to make mental health, particularly for marginalized communities, a pillar of their policies if elected. Disaggregated data, they say, could be key to ensuring recovery policies are working for those that need them most.
In 14 months, Peel District School Board has had three directors of education, as the back-and-forth on policies, directives and getting important equity work done has stalled. Finding the right person for such a fundamental transformation in one of the most diverse regions in the world, will make or break the troubled board. In June, Rashmi Swarup was given the responsibility. The Pointer talks with her about the new role.
The Conservative Party of Canada platform doesn’t point to the specific projects desperately needed in Brampton and Mississauga, but with a plan to help municipalities with infrastructure needs, as well as tackling gun and gang crime, and help for those suffering with mental health and addiction issues, the party is making promises that could benefit the region directly.
The derogatory euphemism was used during Brown’s speech at the Black Education Fund’s inaugural scholarship event.
Organizers of the event held off on posting the video immediately, giving Brown a chance to apologize. But their calls have been met with silence and excuses no one is buying.
Canadians will be heading to the polls once again on September 20, and the turnout could be skewed by ongoing crises at home and abroad.
With many upset about having to go to the ballot box in the first place, could this mean one of the lowest voter turnout levels in history, and how could that impact the parties?
Mississauga played the role of convenient backdrop for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau on Friday as he stopped at a local business to promote a pledged vaccination fund for provincial governments.
The Liberal campaign used the opportunity to increase the profile of Rechie Valdez, the newly nominated local Liberal candidate, who faces a tough fight to win election. Trudeau played to a national audience, as usual, and did not take questions from local media about Mississauga’s unique needs.
With Justin Trudeau’s decision for such a short campaign period, Mississauga and municipalities across the country have been shut out of the usual process to secure funding commitments.
The future for hundreds of cities facing unprecedented needs such as transportation funding, affordable housing dollars and help with climate change has not been well served by the decision to call a rushed election.
A recommendation headed to the Peel Regional Police Services Board on Friday against establishing an anti-Black racism panel is another sign the police organization is not living up to stated commitments, ignoring crucial community engagement to turn around decades of harm done to Black residents in Brampton and Mississauga.
Provincially-appointed board supervisor Bruce Rodrigues will stay in place, despite a request by nine PDSB trustees who want him to leave so they can regain control of the board. They were stripped of their elected responsibilities after a provincial probe found the board’s leadership perpetuated a harmful culture of systemic racism. The Province has confirmed to The Pointer Rodrigues will remain as the supervisor until Queen’s Park’s sweeping directives to transform the troubled organization are properly implemented.
The force’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit has seen its workload grow exponentially over the last five years with reports of potential child sexual abuse material almost doubling every year since 2018. The volume of harmful images and videos uploaded every second is humanly impossible to analyze.
Tech companies have taken little responsibility for their role in these criminal acts, but this could change as companies like Twitter and MindGeek find themselves before the courts.
After their disgraceful behaviour, admittedly allowing systemic racism to flourish inside Peel’s largest school board, nine trustees now say a supervisor brought in by the provincial government to do what they refused, is no longer welcome.
For the past six years, the operating budgets of police, fire and paramedics in Peel have all grown significantly.
While expansion has taken place for all services, police continue to receive the bulk of funding while paramedics and fire scramble for the funds needed to maintain basic services that are already stretched.
A myriad of factors mean Peel has one of the worst rates of diabetes in Canada. Food insecurity, unwalkable streets and a large South Asian-Canadian community genetically prone to the dangerous condition all combine to push diabetes rates in Brampton and Mississauga through the roof.
A Bill tabled by Brampton MP Sonia Sidhu received Royal Assent at the end of June, and proposes a national framework to deal with the problem. Despite the apparent win for her constituents, she’s reluctant to talk about her move to protect millions of Canadians.
Green solutions being implemented across the globe to combat climate change all started with ideas — capturing sunlight, a train that flies at 600 km/h, turning organic waste into energy — all of which would have seemed far-fetched at one time, but are now completely normal across the world.
As we continue to learn and adapt to the changing climate, keeping an open mind may be our best tool for saving the planet.
Dr. Kieran Moore, the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health, is warning Ontarians that it could be a difficult fall and winter.
With the majority of Peel students opting to return to the classroom after months away from their peers, it creates difficult questions for school boards tasked with keeping children safe from COVID-19, and parents who fear they could be putting their children and families at risk.
With the GTA continuing to explode, as cranes and new subdivisions keep popping up across Canada’s main population centre, the ruling PCs have failed to put forward a cohesive transportation plan to keep people, and the economy moving.
Since the Liberals launched the Big Move 13 years ago, a $50-billion strategy to modernize Ontario’s crippled transportation system, planning under Doug Ford has gone backward.
The Liberal Party has managed to keep Peel’s two largest cities red since sweeping all 11 ridings in 2015.
After Sunday’s election call, the Conservatives, NDP and Greens are still trying to find competitors to challenge the eight incumbent Liberals seeking reelection in Brampton and Mississauga. Few have been officially announced.
Tucked behind the G.E. Booth Wastewater Treatment Facility in the southeast corner of Mississauga, a paradise for migrating birds and insects will soon emerge. The Jim Tovey Conservation Area is making progress to bringing the community closer to a natural world cut off by industrialization for decades.
The newly constructed shoreline adds wetlands, meadows and a forest while connecting the waterfront trail to the Lakeview development.
It could be a model for future green projects in the Region.
Mississauga-Streetsville MP Gagan Sikand has been on medical leave since October of last year, leaving constituents with few options for assistance from their federal representative.
On Sunday, hours after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canadians would be headed to the polls in September, Sikand broke his silence to announce he would not be seeking reelection.
Peel’s sprawling geography and the reputation of Toronto’s vibrant, liberal-spirited downtown have made it hard for LGBTQ+ organizations and businesses to flourish in Brampton and Mississauga.
A range of friendly spaces have come and gone, while many locals have been left frustrated searching for their own sense of community.
With wide-ranging allegations of corruption and fraud to examine, more time has been granted for the third-party investigation into the conduct of senior City staffers and Mayor Patrick Brown, raising questions about why he and his supporters tried to curtail the probe.
Many of the allegations are not new, and some council members raised their own concerns months before a City director came forward publicly with a long list of evidence against the mayor, controversial CAO David Barrick (recruited by Brown) and senior employees since hired by the disgraced former Niagara politician.
Leading climate scientists have made it clear, humanity is at its tipping point.
Human influence has already badly scarred the planet, locking in future warming, sea level rise and the acidification of our oceans for centuries to come.
If humanity wants its way of life to continue, emissions have to be radically curtailed, immediately. The oil industry, banks that underwrite it and politicians have run out of time. Our planet will not survive any more excuses.
The role of libraries is important in any city. Rows of books and public computers offer unlimited knowledge to residents free of charge, playing a vital role in fostering equality and democracy.
In Mississauga, librarians from a predominantly white organization are tasked with reflecting a mosaic of different identities, cultures and beliefs. They are expected to provide for everyone, elevate underrepresented communities and also supply potentially controversial materials that may stimulate debate.
Federal political parties are working overtime to attract candidates ahead of the anticipated fall election. For Brampton voters, the nomination process is supposed to ensure a pool of local citizens with lengthy experience in the public or private sector, who will effectively advocate for their city, if they make it to Ottawa.
Unfortunately, the crucial process has long been hijacked by backroom politics and money, resulting in inexperienced elected officials who act as little more than puppets for their party.
New infections are slowly rising in Ontario. After seeing a dramatic drop thanks to a rise in inoculations, positive cases increased by 131 percent in the past week alone.
Millions desperate for pre-pandemic normalcy think rules need to be lifted, but as other countries have shown, loosening restrictions too fast can prolong the public health emergency and hurt the economy in the long run.
In a region where 74 percent of residents drive themselves to work, electric vehicles are an environmental game-changer. A new global report on the consequences of temperature increase makes it crystal clear that humanity is running out of time.
Local car dealerships say while hybrid sales are healthy, the asking price of much more environmentally friendly electric cars, no longer eligible for a hefty provincial rebate, turns off many buyers.
The former premier and the city’s most famous son passed away on the weekend. The Pointer republishes an article from 2019, when he was presented with the key to what will always be his city.
Today’s political scene is riddled with nasty and brutish attack ads and the polarization of positions, which makes many long for a quieter and gentler time when talk was civil and voters churned out leaders like Brampton’s Bill Davis, the old lion of provincial politics, who passed away on the weekend. The Pointer republishes a celebration of this wonderful father, husband and leader, penned to mark his 90th birthday.
When the Olympics come around people are sucked in. The power of pride and the showcasing of our superhuman athletes on the world stage swells us with emotions every four years. A sense of our collective Canadian community, and the potential it draws out, overwhelms many of us.
This year most of ‘our’ medals have been won by women, yet they often don’t get the recognition they deserve outside the games. Three Peel Olympians sat down (virtually) with The Pointer and discussed the equality gap and lack of training facilities in the world of women’s sports.
A recent lawsuit filed against MindGeek, the Canadian parent company of Pornhub, the largest pornographic website in the world, highlights a disturbing number of allegations that, if true, expose just how far the internet has deteriorated due to a lack of regulation.
The cyberworld, unchecked by governments, has allowed predators to connect, share and create a stomach-churning demand for more graphic material and younger victims.
Barber shops, nail salons and spas were closed for a seven-month stretch in Peel. The industry that provides personal care services was one of the hardest hit by COVID. The closures left many business owners scrambling, looking for alternate jobs, while trying to keep their shops from closing for good. It created stress that has deeply impacted a sector so many rely on.
Laura Zilney, the leader of a sexual assault support centre in Peel, has resigned from her advisory role with Peel Police. The force and its chief have levelled serious allegations against her, which she says are “fabrications”.
Minutes of committee meetings show its members, including staff from the Peel District School Board and Peel Children’s Aid Society, have been unable to launch vital equity work.
The PC government has offered over $300 million to help frontline healthcare providers clear an overwhelming backlog of surgeries and other medical procedures, but according to the Province’s own financial office, it’s a fraction of what is actually needed.
Meanwhile, the province is staring down a possible fourth wave that could arrive by the fall, exacerbated by a large cohort of unvaccinated children returning to school.
For five years straight, Peel Regional Police’s complement of uniformed officers has remained unreflective of the community the force serves. Barely a quarter of the entire force (including civilian employees) is racialized and women remain poorly represented.
The handful of Indigenous employees and persons with disabilities make up just one percent of the department. But the recent recruit class suggests change is finally happening.
Mississauga and Brampton have struggled to bring culture, vitality and interest to their downtown core. For contrasting reasons, the areas around both city halls have failed to capture the imagination of the public.
Each city features another area better suited for the ‘downtown’ designation. Is it time to admit that investment and energy should be directed elsewhere?
If you think this summer has been unbearable, by the 2050s, Peel will experience temperatures rarely seen in the region, or Canada, before.
It will be part of a blistering trend threatening Mississauga and Brampton that could make summers outside dangerous for some.
This week, the public was invited to “engage” with provincial engineers and consultants about the GTA West Highway.
Participants were met with a process that did not allow them any visibility and prevented questioning, leaving the public in a vacuum of PC spin about the benefits of environmentally devastating highway planning stuck in the ‘60s.
Mississauga is the latest city to experiment with a backyard chicken program.
Brampton’s backyard garden initiative has been a huge success. And more and more urban farming efforts are appealing to a younger generation rethinking our relationship with the land we live on, and the food we eat.
It’s been two years since the minority Liberals have needed the voters in Brampton and Mississauga. As speculation about an upcoming federal election mounts, the party that won all eleven seats in both cities last time around is once again trying to curry favour.
In the process, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to have fudged the numbers on an affordable housing project in Brampton.
The City of Brampton was forced to reveal the cost of hiring CAO David Barrick and director of strategic communications, Jason Tamming.
After their troubling history in Niagara, Brampton residents were eager to find out how much was spent to hire two individuals with an abysmal track record in the public sector. The Pointer tried for eight months to get answers, before the province’s information commissioner had to be drawn in to obtain details of how the two men were recruited despite their disqualifying behaviour in Niagara.
The provincial government estimates the surgical and procedural backlog in Ontario will take nearly four years and more than a billion dollars to fix.
The overwhelming workload is now the responsibility of a frontline medical staff who were reporting alarming levels of compassion fatigue and burn out even before COVID-19 overwhelmed the system.
With the provincial election less than a year away, the PCs have finished promoting all of Peel’s governing MPPs to positions of influence. The region now has four separate cabinet ministers and five parliamentary assistants, roles which could boost reputations ahead of tough fights next year. Whether they have the experience to fulfill their new responsibilities, is another story.
