With sweeping and controversial reforms to Ontario healthcare hovering over the horizon, Bramptonians are growing nervous about what those changes will mean for a city that is already short on healthcare infrastructure.
At a town hall in Brampton Friday, the Ontario Health Coalition and Peel Poverty Action Group rallied support for an April 30 protest at Queen’s Park against changes widely viewed as a move towards privatizing healthcare.
It seems warnings of teacher cuts have come to pass. The Peel District School Board and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, Peel District, say hundreds of teaching jobs will be eliminated by the fall due to the Ford government's funding cuts to the public education system.
The 330 “surplus to board” notices sent to teachers in Peel aren’t part of an annual routine, as the Ford government has suggested, as there have been no layoffs in the PDSB for the past five years.
The loss of teachers, the OSSTF says, could lead to 1,200 fewer classes being offered in Peel high schools, reducing elective options for students.
The provincial budget is leaving a choppy wake, with far reaching ripples across Ontario. Brampton Centre MPP Sara Singh raised the alarm Monday about cuts in the provincial budget that would gut public health units across the province. The number of units would be reduced from 35 to 10, leaving Peel Public Health vulnerable.
In the era of vaccine skepticism and a raging opioid crisis, the units have a vital role to play, and cuts have the potential to exacerbate major public health issues.
The arrest of one suspected serial offender alleged to have committed 45 property crimes that targeted Muslims helped reduce reported hate crimes in the region last year, according to a report presented to Friday’s Peel Police Services Board meeting.
But the annual tally is still nearly double what it was prior to the 2016 U.S. election of Donald Trump and the subsequent emboldening of hate groups across North America.
Peel police detective Feras Ismail said race is the primary motivation for hate crimes and hate-related incidents in the region, followed by religion and sexual identity.
The controversial addition of “Sikh (Khalistani) Extremism” in an annual report on terrorism threats had riled Sikhs across Canada, who said they were unfairly tarred by the assessment.
The threat remains in the list under the title of “Extremists who Support Violent Means to Establish an Independent State Within India.” But just ahead of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's attendance at Sikh celebrations in Vancouver this past weekend, marking a significant historical religious event, his government removed language in the report deemed by many Sikhs as too vague and over-reaching.
Questions remain about whether Ottawa has credible evidence to support the idea that a separatist movement whose heyday ended in the early 1990s, after the 1985 Air India bombing, continues to pose a threat.
Thursday’s raucous Peel Region council meeting was proof positive that this is a house divided. Mississauga is eager for independence, and said it has the numbers to prove it’s being ripped off by its partnership with Brampton and Caledon. They counter that the status quo is just fine – and they, too, have the numbers on their side. But all the positioning is really just posturing, as the decision on the future of Peel Region will be made by one man, while the political winds blow around him.
A furor in Peel Region council chambers on Thursday pitted pro-secession Mississauga councillors against a former colleague turned chair and defender of regional government.
Nando Iannicca argued, correctly, that he had a right under municipal bylaws to quietly authorize a consultant’s study that ultimately suggested Peel would be better off sticking with the status quo than breaking up.
But Iannicca admits the rollout of the Deloitte report, commissioned ahead of a provincial review of regional government, wasn’t handled well — particularly when it was handed to Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown (on Brown’s request) ahead of the Mississauga delegation.
The search for the next Peel Regional Police chief has entered a new phase with the hiring of an executive search firm.
That announcement came at Friday’s Police Services Board meeting, where members also said they are seeking public feedback.
This was welcome news to the students of Sheridan College’s Community Worker program, who spoke to the board – with its powerful members, including Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, looking on – about themes they’d discussed together, including intercultural competency, inherent biases and the possibly negative effects of School Resource Officers.
A terrorism threat report released in Ottawa in December unfairly paints all Sikhs with the brush of “Khalistani extremism,” say offended members of Brampton’s large Sikh community who showed up at a town hall meeting on Sunday to express their concerns about lasting repercussions, while many question why an issue involving the declining Sikh independence movement in India is being conflated with extremism in the first place.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has admitted the language needs to be fixed to avoid libelling Canada’s half-million Sikhs.
But the federal government has yet to explain why a movement whose heyday was in the 1980s is suddenly showing up in Ottawa’s annual security assessment.
Thursday’s Peel Region council meeting was a session lit with cannon fire. Mayors and regional councillors were at each other’s throats over the question of Mississauga’s proposed exit from the region.
The main sore point was the contradictory findings of two reports: One by City of Mississauga staff asserts the city would save $85 million a year by no longer being obligated to subsidize the other two municipalities. The second, a consultant’s report for the region, calls Mississauga’s methodology flawed.
This is a Tale of Two Cities: Mississauga and Brampton, linked by history and politics. Our neighbour to the south is eager to score its freedom from its two northern partners because it wants out of the Region of Peel. Monday night inside Mississauga City Council chambers, a special town hall meeting was held so residents could express their feelings on the future of their city. While Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and a special report commissioned by the region urge caution, the forces of change are active, and two of the biggest and fasting growing cities in Canada might be moving towards separate lives, or a joint future.
In her quest to get a Mexit from Peel Region, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie has rolled out financial figures that suggest the larger city to the south of Brampton is paying an outsized amount to subsidize its two regional partners.
But new numbers in a report by consulting firm Deloitte, presented at Regional Council, contradict her claims, while at least one expert says it’s virtually impossible to calculate which city has contributed more to an interconnected system of government over five decades.
Making cities more accessible to the disabled will take a holistic approach from both public and private interests. But Ontario is falling behind schedule in implementing these much-needed changes. The recently released Onley Report says the need for inclusion is great, and if we want to overcome the “soul-crushing” barriers we’ve put up in society, that means full compliance of Bill 118, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. What we all get in return are the types of places most of us want to live in: vibrant, diverse, green and accessible.
Sheridan College students in the Community Worker program joined members of the public Thursday and discussed what they would like to see in the next chief of police, who will be hired to replace the controversial former head, Jennifer Evans, after her resignation in January. Themes of mental health and cultural competency came up as well as nuanced solutions to both.
Students will present the key takeaways at next week’s Peel Police Services Board meeting to provide feedback on what members should consider when deciding who will lead the country’s third largest municipal police force into the future.
In a letter to the Doug Ford government, the chair of the Peel District School Board warns of dire consequences if Ontario proceeds with bigger high school classes, mandated online courses and other changes that will cut costs at the expense of students.
The changes will mean the loss of 500 teachers, put students with autism, special needs or living in poverty at special risk, and leave regular students with fewer opportunities for one-on-one time with their teachers, Stan Cameron writes.
His letter, pleading with the province to listen to those affected, comes on the eve of student protest walkouts planned in Brampton and across the province.
Simply throwing more officers at a perceived crime problem may not only be costly but less effective than other strategies, experts suggest.
Cyber crime and other rising trends demand a different style of policing that is only in its infancy in Peel and many other parts of Canada.
But getting to the point where decisions about police resources are based on evidence rather than knee-jerk responses will take a huge cultural shift — one that might depend on who’s picked as Peel’s next chief of police.
After months of speculation about what he will do next, Tony Clement has announced that he is leaving politics. In a statement released Tuesday, Clement, who launched his political career in Brampton where he began a swift rise up to the dizzying heights of public life, says that he will not be running in the upcoming federal election.
He resigned from the federal Tory party caucus last November after he admitted to sexting someone he thought was a “consenting female recipient.” The RCMP began investigating after Clement claimed he was also the victim of an extortion attempt.
The federal Liberal government just announced a five-year, $595 million plan in its budget to help the struggling print news business. Criticism has rightfully drawn attention to the possibility of a few large newspaper chains getting the lion’s share of the public largesse.
But ultimately, the only way news journalism can thrive, is if it’s done well and serves the people, all the people, who rely on it.
Peel police just nabbed almost 30 firearms, 1,500 rounds of ammunition, and narcotics with a street value of $1.2 million, in a single bust.
That’s a lot, but just a drop in the bucket compared with the yearly haul of illegal guns, which is far higher than comparable jurisdictions.
So why isn’t the region getting extra help from higher governments to deal with a flood of weapons that contributed to the growing violence in Brampton over the past couple of years?
A scathing equity/diversity audit of Peel police was released on Friday, painting a brutal picture of a dysfunctional force that needs new leadership.
The evidence in the report that now paves the way for real change, following years of lip service, wouldn’t have come to light without former Brampton mayor Linda Jeffrey and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie.
Two of Canada’s largest and most diverse cities are served by a police force that does not reflect the community and whose leaders have swept under the carpet serious concerns about internal discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation.
A diversity audit was initiated by the police board two years ago after racially charged incidents pitted community advocates against a force perceived to be homogenous and unresponsive to changing demographics.
An alarming 90 percent of police employees who participated in focus groups for the audit reported either experiencing or witnessing harassment or discrimination.
Tuesday’s federal budget announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government promises about $2 billion more for cities this year to help pay for desperately needed infrastructure in municipalities across the country. But in places like Brampton, where the infrastructure gap is rapidly increasing because of major spending areas that were downloaded onto cities by higher levels of government, municipal leaders are still wondering where the promised $188 billion for infrastructure, pledged in the 2016 budget over a decade, has gone.
Ottawa blames Queen’s Park for stalling some of the funding. The PCs tell The Pointer that Ottawa’s claim is incorrect.
Councillors have voted to put into writing what they’ve been saying for years: Mississauga is a mature city that should be allowed to stand on its own two feet.
After a public meeting to gather input, the city plans to ask the Doug Ford government, which is currently reviewing the regional system, to allow a formal separation from Peel Region rather than pursue the idea of a “super-city” of Peel.
What that means for Brampton and Caledon is the big thorny question.
Toronto police conduct the vast majority of strip searches in Ontario, but Peel police come in second when it comes to improper searches, and might perform the most unlawful strip-searches per capita.
That’s according to Ontario’s police watchdog, which found a disturbing ignorance among police officers about the guidelines set in a landmark Supreme Court ruling 20 years ago.
The OIPRD found Peel police conducted at least 14 illegal strip searches of people arrested since 2002, but because of incomplete data it's unclear if the force has performed even more unlawful searches.
Boosting the average high school class from 22 to 28 kids will have special impact in Brampton, where many schools are already stretched to cope with packed buildings amid a growth-related boom in students.
Education Minister Lisa Thompson has promised there won’t be any teacher layoffs, but the change will mean major cutbacks in positions, limiting opportunities for both fresh new teachers and students.
Together the populations of Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon would be Canada’s third largest city.
Mississauga councillor Carolyn Parrish believes that such a “super-city,” which would dwarf Toronto geographically, is a potential outcome of a PC review of regional governance—which is likely to lead to amalgamations in other regions such as Waterloo and Niagara.
It comes at a time when the region is already teetering on the edge of disunity, with Mississauga preferring to secede altogether.
Stripping away density targets recently established across the province is Doug Ford’s latest gift to his developer friends. Some Caledon members of regional council are more than happy with moves that will increase sprawl, create more traffic chaos and hasten climate change.
With traffic gridlock and sprawl already wreaking havoc on Peel Region, the Doug Ford government’s proposed turnaround, now calling for lower density, may make things even worse, but it’s exactly what Caledon wants.
It leaves many concerned about how to continue growth in a way that’s sustainable, that improves quality of life in fast-growing communities like Brampton, shortens commutes and reduces the impact on climate change.
With political heavy hitters Hazel McCallion and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie desperate to pull Peel apart, the region’s CAO and CEO/Chair say they are doing everything in their power to keep the two-tier government together.
Peel’s CAO tells staff that a recent meeting with the Doug Ford government’s advisors was “positive,” though anxiety still swirls around what changes the province may be contemplating.
Regional Chair Nando Iannicca says Peel should be viewed as a model to be emulated, not broken apart.
Peel school boards say they’re still in the dark about what a memo from the provincial education ministry about exercising “prudence” will mean for their hiring decisions this year — or what the consequences of a hiring freeze and other elements of a current provincial review would be for schools.
Officials have indicated that they would be expected to comply with ministry directives. With potential increases in class sizes and cuts to all-day kindergarten, uncertainty looms large over Brampton’s schools.
On Wednesday, parallel sets of testimony in two national capitals threatened to bring down national leaders over alleged misdeeds and coverups.
In Washington, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen called his boss of more than a decade a racist, a con man and a cheat. In Ottawa, Jody Wilson-Raybould said her Prime Minister and others had placed unethical pressure on her as attorney general to go easy on the SNC-Lavalin corporation in its bid to avoid a criminal trial.
In both cases, the light of day is beginning to penetrate into dark corners the powerful would rather keep hidden from public scrutiny.
Fears that the province is about to announce an end to charging developers for installing new water infrastructure have prompted Peel Region councillors to prepare a pushback PR campaign.
A flyer could be making its way into water bills in hopes of rallying public opinion against such a move.
Regional officials point out that eliminating utility development charges could boost annual water and wastewater costs by $500 per residential customer.
A move by Peel Region Council to ask a consultant to take another look at a controversial new paramedic deployment system in Caledon has been deferred to June.
The paramedics union and some residents are worried that the new model, which requires paramedics to go to a station in Brampton to pick up their ambulances before deploying to a satellite station in the sprawling community, could endanger lives.
Regional council plans to wait until Peel staff report back in June with their own assessment before ordering another evaluation.
Plans to scrap LHINs, bring a collection of health agencies together under a single umbrella and create new local “Ontario Health Teams” were announced Tuesday by provincial Health Minister Christine Elliott.
Amid the fear of job losses, some of the work needed to create a new local organization is already underway through the William Osler Health System, which has been angling toward changes in service delivery for some time.
The idea of a “super agency” in the name of streamlining care, however, is drawing skepticism from patient advocates.
While Peel Region deals with a rise in human trafficking, it’s a crime that’s often misunderstood and ignored by the general public.
Victims of this form of modern slavery range from young girls drawn into the sex trade to male migrant workers exploited for their labour.
But many people are surprised to learn most are Canadians — and, shockingly, half of those exploited for the sex trade are Indigenous.
The SNC-Lavalin scandal raises many questions about who democracy serves. Is the mantra, too big to fail, the new normal when it comes to private interests that receive protection from systems of justice, at the expense of the very system of government doing the protecting?
On a per capita basis, Peel receives less than many other regions of Ontario for carrying out provincially mandated public health programs, despite steps in recent years to adjust for unique factors such as a high immigrant population.
Regional council is looking at ways to push its case for more equitable funding for programs like early childhood vision screening, mental health and addictions programs, diabetes risk reduction and control of infectious disease outbreaks.
It may be an uphill battle, with the PC government showing little interest in providing new money for improvements to healthcare in the region.
After a heated exchange between regional councillors and staff over slow progress on building affordable housing units in Peel Region — and an antiquated system for tracking the wait-list — Councillor Carolyn Parrish revealed that Mississauga plans one move that might help: removing development charges on basement apartments.
The committee asked staff to investigate the feasibility of doing the same region-wide, encouraging builders to put ready-to-rent units into new homes.
A presentation about housing priorities for the coming year also drew exasperation when it was revealed that the wait-list is woefully out of date because staff are still using a paper-based method to track it.
Caledon residents contend they were not properly informed about significant changes to how paramedic service is delivered in rural areas that were fully implemented in mid-January — a plan that had been ruled out years earlier.
They’re concerned that turning their EMS stations into satellite locations could compromise service and possibly put lives at risk in Caledon and Brampton.
But the region’s commissioner of health services counters those worries and points to a number of efforts by the region to inform residents and quell concerns.
The provincial PC government announced Tuesday they will be curtailing the scope of SIU investigations in order to “Restore Respect for Police Officers.” A new bill would mean the SIU will be called in only when an injury or death occurs as a result of police use of force and vehicle pursuits that result in injury or death.
The bill would also reduce the size of the province’s police oversight regime. In a region where police misconduct is rife, it’s unclear what effect legislation like this could have.
Two months into the year and MPPs are finally returning to their places at Queen’s Park.
There’s lots of unresolved business from the previous year on the agenda, including a bill to reduce car insurance premiums, the business-friendly Bill 66, the future of Peel Region and other regional governments, and reforms to the healthcare system.
Though the government has been on a break, there has been movement on those issues that will probably decide the course of the session to come.
Daylighting Chedoke, Exploring Hamilton’s Hidden Creek is a Canadian author’s underground journey to find the source and story of a creek long buried under Hamilton. It's a telling tale about manipulating nature, hiding it away in our paved-over urban environment. There are financial, environmental and social benefits to uncovering our past, especially right here in Brampton.
Politicians like Donald Trump and Doug Ford don't care about the air we breathe and the water we drink. Neither do the CEOs and other elites who pursue policies and profits, with the help of willing leaders, at the expense of our planet. It's time for common sense to prevail, for those who don't care about living the lifestyles of the rich and famous to use the power of the vote to save us from ourselves.
Is the Ford government’s proposed Bill 66 really driven by its “Open for Business” mantra? Is the GTA West Corridor really about smart transportation? And are moves that might cut fees for developers really about helping beleaguered homebuyers? Or, is it all just to appease certain players, like the builders and developers he promised to help in a leaked video during last year’s provincial election? Ford has turned the clock back on real change in this province, and the business and ecological prospects are troubling for those who care just as much about the planet in which they live as their short time on it.
The Doug Ford government is considering eliminating development charges related to building new water and sewer systems — a gift to the developers who have to pay them.
Some argue those charges raise the price of new homes, but at Thursday's Peel Council meeting Mayor Patrick Brown and other members said the claim that getting rid of them will result in trickle-down savings needs to be debunked.
It will put the burden for water infrastructure on utility users and could raise the average homeowner’s water bill by more than $500 a year.
A regional report says Toronto and the federal government owe Peel Region over $400,000 in costs incurred in assisting an influx of refugees — including some transferred from Toronto.
Toronto recently received $15 million in federal money to help recover some of what it spent to help newcomers resettle in Canada, but no such funding has come to Peel Region.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says he’s been talking to federal officials about the issue, and about getting the region’s fair share of support.
Low-income families are now waiting six years to get into subsidized housing. But Peel Region, pressed to keep tax increases down, hasn’t devoted much in the budget to improving the situation.
Instead, it’s calling on the province to help by providing incentives for building rental housing and encouraging mandatory inclusionary housing, which means builders have to include affordable units in developments over a certain size.
The Ford government’s decision to revive a controversial project suspended in 2015 is being touted as a way to alleviate congestion on the 401 and other highways.
Supporters, including Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, say a new highway would boost the local economy by easing the transport of goods and services around the region, while critics and some residents directly affected call it a backward and destructive step that will lead to more sprawl.
The sure winners will be the development industry and major landholders awaiting the chance to open up more land, some of it in or near environmentally protected areas.
Elected union president Adrian Woolley, often a public face of the Peel Regional Police, was charged by the Burlington OPP on Saturday night.
The charges come after long-time criticism of the force for its high rate of police misconduct cases.
Municipal leaders are now meeting with the province to consult on the regional governance review, and it won’t be long before Peel Region comes under scrutiny.
With Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s staunch belief that her city should be allowed to secede, Brampton saying it needs the region, and Caledon feeling overwhelmed by its larger partners, presenting a unified vision seems like a pipe dream.
As a result of Hasneet Singh Punia’s actions while working as Linda Jeffrey’s chief of staff, city council had banned those holding the position from being included in closed-door meetings, where sensitive, confidential information is shared. Now the ban has been lifted and Mayor Patrick Brown’s confidante, Babu Nagalingam, will be able to participate.
But Punia’s sharing of confidential documents raises a question: Who should be trusted with sensitive information?
