With children stuck inside, more and more are turning to the internet and social media to entertain themselves and stay connected with friends, unaware they’re being targeted.
The presence of child sexual abuse material is rising dramatically – triggering calls for popular sites like Pornhub to be shuttered for not doing enough to remove abusive content.
Has the pandemic reshaped our world and our buying habits? Will those brick and mortar stores and some of our biggest malls be laid to waste under a constant assault by e-commerce giants like Amazon and Rakuten? Just what is the future of the retail sector at both the local and national level?
From botched tests and a sad federal aid package to high infection rates and low testing counts, Mississauga has had a bad couple weeks. The ongoing COVID crisis had seemed like it was finally coming to an end, before the flurry of negative news.
North America has been rocked by explosive protests against ongoing anti-Black racism following the death of George Floyd who died after a police officer’s weight pressed down on the man’s neck for nearly ten minutes while he hopelessly pleaded for mercy.
Most of the boiling reaction, including rioting and looting, has occurred south of the border. But Peel has its own brutal legacy of anti-Black behaviour, which the new chief, Nishan Duraiappah, isn’t hiding from.
Brampton and Mississauga are in a holding pattern and people are beyond tired of circling around their homes, waiting for a return to normal life. The province’s new plan for testing is crucial to any future reopening timeline and will help Peel immensely as it continues to struggle with high rates of infection. But the unfolding approach to ramp up testing remains somewhat unclear for many waiting to return to work and normalcy.
Online petitions are gaining more traction as the anti-Black racism movement stretches across North America, helping amplify the complaints of systemic discrimination inside the Peel District School Board. Calls are growing louder for Director Peter Joshua to step down.
The federal government remained silent for weeks on how it will help foundering municipalities whose revenues dried up almost as fast as the spread of the novel coronavirus. But when Justin Trudeau broke that silence Monday, his commitment was nowhere near what cities were expecting.
William Osler failed to report hundreds of positive novel coronavirus tests after they were confirmed in provincial labs. Meanwhile, Peel Public Health did not notice a lack of results from Brampton’s only testing centre and failed to trace the cases. Now, neither organization is responding to questions, while the province and Health Minister Christine Elliott step in to take the blame.
The city is taking its own slow path to return residents and businesses to normal life, and has released a detailed list of what can and cannot be done within its borders.
Those desperate for a full scale reopening will have to wait for COVID-19 to retreat much further, while other parts of the region have been identified as a hot spot by the province.
The plan involves bringing mobile testing centres to workplaces experiencing outbreaks to ensure widespread testing can occur. While the province is working with regional health agencies to roll out the initiative, no information on when wide scale testing will begin is available. Meanwhile, Peel neighbourhood data has been released for the first time and the picture is not good in many parts of the region.
Media reports have revealed that the health network operating Brampton’s hospitals and the sole testing centre at Peel Memorial did not notify public health agencies of hundreds of positive test results due to a mix up, leaving officials scrambling to trace the possible spread of the novel coronavirus as a result of the communication error.
The star of Netflix’s new hit, Never Have I Ever, spoke to The Pointer about the growing diversity in TV and film and her home in Mississauga. She hopes to see more roles for South Asian actors in the future and would love her success to help put Mississauga, the place where she was shaped, on the map.
A group of white trustees at Peel District School Board has shared its concerns over the consequences of ending academic streaming. In March, the Ministry of Education instructed the board to end the practice, which has been shown to harm visible minority students, especially those who are Black.
May marked the first time the city experienced a heat wave this year. With temperatures reaching 30 degrees or more two days in a row, many vulnerable residents who rely on external cooling facilities had nowhere to go. Landlords are not required to keep temperatures below any specific level, which often leads to blistering indoor conditions that residents now have no relief from.
Even as the global COVID-19 pandemic continues, people are turning their eyes to the future.
The education sector, so often slow to adapt, is one area that could see radical changes and a move to effective online learning as the world slowly reopens.
The novel coronavirus still poses a catastrophic threat in Brampton and Mississauga, despite growing desires to ignore the pandemic. While people flock to outdoor spaces under the summer-like sunshine, local officials are warning the risk is far from over. The mounting dilemma comes as Peel Region’s public health authority waits on provincial testing instructions that could help both cities get a better handle on a local crisis that is still spreading.
The City has talked a lot about getting back to normal, but Mayor Patrick Brown appears to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Some information does not add up, with officials reassuring residents that the ongoing local COVID-19 risk, including news of outbreaks in the city, will dictate plans. But details of a unique Brampton approach have been few and far between.
With Toronto Pearson Airport near the heart of Peel and other settlement dynamics at play, immigrants from around the globe come to call Mississauga and Brampton home. However, data from Statistics Canada shows that many families and young professionals choose to decamp and move elsewhere in Ontario.
The principal of a Peel high school has been suspended pending an investigation into comments she made at a staff meeting last week. Multiple sources have told The Pointer those comments were Islamophobic and in response to the Ministry of Education’s directive to end the streaming of racialized students into pathways that are damaging to their future.
A letter to Peel District School Board from the Ministry of Education has drawn more attention to the board’s failure to deal with its widespread discriminatory practices including anti-Black racism. The scathing memo raises more questions about Director Peter Joshua's mishandling of the disturbing issue and reveals three of the board’s recent responses were inadequate, while a request for extensions to others was labelled “concerning”.
In an unprecedented move, the Canadian Armed Forces has chosen to publicly expose appalling conditions in Ontario’s long-term care sector after providing emergency assistance over the last month.
While many of the findings confirm the terrible reality many seniors have suffered for decades, the push from the military may finally bring sustained pressure to force decision makers into action.
Rules created at the turn of the century have seen Mississauga lose out on more than $15 million in payments from Toronto Pearson Airport. But a dramatic drop in passenger volume as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to tens of millions in losses for the City and illustrates how unfair the system is to taxpayers in Mississauga.
The Canadian Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance program aims to aid thousands of small businesses including those based in Peel. But the decision to provide help while thousands of owners struggle to stay afloat rests with landlords.
Canada has often led the world in the criminalization of family violence, but the problem has gotten “out of hand” says the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. The killer virus is delivering another deadly lesson, and this one is aimed directly at men.
With the overwhelming volume of COVID-19 news, and the uncertainty that has taken over daily life, many have been hunting for ways to escape.
Whether that’s through new hobbies or old passions, the Brampton Library system has seen a serious spike in people looking for books and materials to help keep them occupied at home.
Barely a step above stone tablets, Ontario’s court system has long been in need of an innovation upgrade to ensure timely access and get the wheels of justice moving properly.
The global pandemic could be the jolt it needs.
Leaders in both cities are grappling with an increasingly complex dilemma: infection rates are higher than in many parts of the province and most of the country, forcing officials to use localized data from public health officials and more caution when deciding when and how to reopen their communities. Meanwhile, frustration among many in the public, especially the business world, is mounting.
As the Province begins to ease measures under the state of emergency, the Region of Peel is not following suit, exactly. Officials are taking a more localized approach to reopening as new cases in Peel mirror a pattern similar to the start of the pandemic. The Region’s top public health official says more testing is needed if Peel expects to prevent continued transmission within local communities.
As Mississauga’s first light rail system moves closer to its launch in 2024, developers are flocking to the city. New proposals for six towers at Eglinton Avenue and Hurontario Street are among the boons the project has attracted.
With the provincial announcement that schools will not return at least until September, other learning options are being put on the table. Plans to “more than double” summer schools and allow some day camps have been laid out, but with the uncertainty caused by an unpredictable problem there are more questions than answers for parents trying desperately to keep their children engaged and occupied.
As the spread of the novel coronavirus lives through another week, more professionals need mental health support. But is there enough available?
It’s a question that will likely loom for years, as our healthcare networks face a prolonged crisis that could overwhelm an already stretched system.
For years, the Region of Peel has passed the buck on housing. Every budget sees councillors favouring lower tax increases and sharp hikes for policing, over subsidized housing and shelter support.
In the face of COVID-19, the Region has finally been forced to act and faces a major hit that could have been avoided.
After almost two months of inaction, the Fiat Chrysler assembly line in Brampton is set to get rolling again. Some workers are already inside as preparations take place for a full reopening after the Victoria Day weekend. With a killer virus still an invisible threat, the workplace, like all others in Ontario and around the world, is undergoing some serious changes.
The greed and irrelevance of sports shows no signs of abating during the toughest days of the 2020 pandemic.
A perfect record on the gridiron didn’t lead to fame and fortune in the NFL, but Brampton’s Chuck Ealey came north to Canada to use his skills as a quarterback and “pass” along some important lessons in life to his high-achieving children. They continue the fight for justice and equality in Brampton and Mississauga.
Nishan Duraiappah has a tall task. The man who took over as the head of Peel police in the fall has to turn around one of the country’s largest departments.
Police culture is traditionally a hard thing to change, with entrenched institutional attitudes. The chief now has at least two more allies from his old force to help rehabilitate a department that many in the community had lost faith in.
A regular patient in the renal program at Brampton Civic Hospital is worried he will never be tested for COVID-19, even after the organization told The Pointer testing for people who might have been exposed during an outbreak among staff working in the program would be implemented.
Large anchor organizations in Mississauga and Brampton are offering supplies to food banks and community organizations across both cities.
But as the pandemic continues to cause economic upheaval, which could last for months, a more coordinated and sustained plan to ensure the safety of residents is needed.
In January, Mississauga proudly said it would be putting millions of dollars into renovating its City Centre Transit Terminal.
However, even as the work begins, plans are afoot for a new Downtown Terminal that will replace the current setup altogether.
As the majority of the population stays home to stop the spread of COVID-19, a small minority are flouting the rules.
Some reckless drivers are risking their lives and the lives of others in harebrained attempts to push their cars to the limit.
A virtual PDSB meeting saw action on two more directives from the Ministry of Education.
Despite this, board members continued to demonstrate they don’t — or don’t want to — understand the issues at the heart of the ministry’s review, which revealed widespread problems with equity in one of the country’s most diverse school systems.
Financial troubles in Mississauga have been piling up since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief financial officer Gary Kent says the projected losses would equate to a cancelled community centre and park.
A message from the Ministry of Education to school boards made it clear: “synchronous” learning, including the use of popular video platforms, has to be implemented by all schools. The announcement has forced school boards in Peel to revisit their position on the use of innovative online tools and develop better solutions to ongoing issues.
After hospitals across the country cancelled elective surgeries to make capacity for the fight against COVID-19, many Canadians were left to deal with a range of maladies on their own.
The province has now created a framework for how some hospitals can begin to schedule procedures, but many suffering in Peel could be waiting a long time.
Premier Doug Ford and many in the public are breathing down the neck of health officials responsible for novel coronavirus testing across the province.
The faster places like Peel can meet requirements, the faster life will return to a closer version of normal.
This pandemic has clearly shown the cost of playing politics with the facts just to feed the markets and get elected. The inability to grasp the current crisis shows the fault lines within the world’s superpower, exposed after four decades of the worst excesses of a-social individualism.
After a decade and a half at the tiller, Mississauga’s CAO and City Manager is retiring. Speaking to The Pointer, Janice Baker reflected on growth, public transit and what she hopes her legacy will be. On this Mother’s Day, she can rest assured, knowing that her place in the city’s history will be forever remembered.
Cities like Mississauga and Brampton are mandated to balance their budgets, meaning COVID-19 will ratchet up the pressure to be fiscally prudent, when they need to be bold. They need more power and proper ways to raise money so they can prepare for the knowns, and unknowns.
You wouldn’t guess by looking at the turnout for municipal elections, but councillors hold a lot of power. Local representatives are in charge of everything from safety, public health, crime and public transit to the way we grow and plan for the future. However, there are limits too. Councillors who do things like pretend they can change immigration policy or gun laws are fooling their residents and wasting valuable staff time, often to score cheap political points or plot for future careers.
As Ontario looks to slowly ease lockdown measures, many local business owners are raring to go.
In Peel, a variety of stores and services say they have already considered the precautions needed to stay safe and are desperately waiting for the green light.
