The Region of Peel says it will have to increase property taxes by more than 6 percent on its share of the bill next year to maintain current service levels, largely because of cuts being planned by Queen’s Park that will download many costs onto municipal property owners. In Brampton, which faces a growing infrastructure deficit at the local level, homeowners could be on the hook for a massive tax increase in 2020.
The shocking Jeffrey Epstein human trafficking case has grabbed the international spotlight, but sadly it’s the high-powered people close to the American billionaire driving much of the attention.
Those fighting the rapidly growing demand for the trafficking of women, many of them teenagers and younger, say the case shows just how far-reaching this devastating criminal activity has become.
The Ontario NDP Deputy Leader and Brampton MPP is dealing with a former party riding association president who has admitted his romantic feelings for her. Singh has had to file a formal harassment complaint and recently sent the man a cease and desist letter. It’s 2019, but many women in politics still have to put up with attitudes of privilege that continue to define a Mad Men world of male entitlement. But when Hurricane Hazel McCallion blew into town decades ago, she put men in that world on notice: don’t mess with this new force that’s only going to get stronger.
New Education Minister Stephen Lecce was sent out by his masters to fix the PC party’s failing reputation ahead of this October’s federal election. But cheap tricks only remind Ontarians that Doug Ford is using the same Mike Harris playbook that got their party booted from leadership for more than 15 years.
Prevention may be as important as repairing the damage to curtail the impact of human trafficking in Peel. If we learn to employ strategies effectively and with a commitment like that shared by participants in the Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Trauma, public education and even mathematics may be able to help.
Changes to a Grade 10 mandatory course, including beefed-up components involving financial literacy and emerging careers, won’t do much to help students suffering the more immediate results of funding cuts and increased class sizes, say some educators.
The curriculum update announced this week by new Education Minister Stephen Lecce follows a series of major changes to Ontario’s education system that will result in fewer teachers, fewer support staff and fewer course options in schools across the province.
Financial literacy and steering students toward the jobs of the future are top goals as the revised Career Studies course, a required half-semester program for Grade 10 students in Brampton and across the province, rolls out this fall.
The new curriculum also reckons with the fact that many jobs are disappearing in the face of new technology and that students need to know how to pick a career path that won’t be taken over by robots. (Of course, they could build those robots.)
In February 2018, former Brampton Centre NDP Riding Association president Bruce Marshall was asked to leave Sara Singh’s campaign, apparently in response to allegations made by the candidate, who was later elected. In her complaint in spring 2018, a month before the election, and again in a recent letter written to Marshall this May, Singh alleged a pattern of inappropriate behaviour, including repeated unwanted advances, inappropriate touching and communication, and intrusive behaviour at public events.
Sex trafficking flourishes amid public apathy and a lack of supports to help women who escape find healing and a permanent path out of poverty and exploitation. There are solutions out there — and people passionately prepared to do the hard work — but they’ll need money and political commitment.
Minister Stephen Lecce’s pledge to listen to teachers’ concerns amid his call to speed up negotiations on new contracts for teachers seems a good sign, says local union president Gail Bannister-Clarke. But the leader of Peel’s public elementary teachers still wonders: are the governing PCs prepared to bargain in good faith?
Often lost in statistics, arrest reports and confusion about the nature of sex trafficking is the very real and human story of a level of violence and suffering – sexual, physical, psychological — that a seasoned researcher tells a packed conference room “has touched my heart so deeply.”
A move to merge Peel Region’s public health unit with three others has regional councillors worried about whether the unique needs of this diverse region, with a population of 1.4 million, will continue to get the focus they deserve.
They’re petitioning the province to keep things as they are, at least in Peel.
As calls for ambulances race upward, a $4.9 million shortfall in Peel’s health budget following provincial cuts could mean longer waits for people in crisis and a reduced ability to deal with multiple emergencies.
Councillors met in camera on Wednesday to discuss details of the planned Hurontario light rail line as it enters Brampton, with a terminus at Steeles Avenue. Talks are happening with property owners along the city’s southern LRT corridor affected by the current project as it heads north from Mississauga into Brampton. But residents hoping the route will continue into downtown are still waiting for answers to key questions about the future of LRT in the city.
While the region has been spared the most devastating effects of a North American epidemic of opioid addiction, statistics suggest the situation isn’t improving.
There were 81 opioid-related deaths in 2017, and overdoses continue to strain the region’s emergency departments.
An executive search firm is helping with a Canada-wide search for a replacement for Jennifer Evans, who resigned in January after a troubled six-year term as chief. The decision on a new leader comes at a difficult time for Peel Region Police, with a rise in violent crime and a police force struggling to better reflect the diverse community it serves.
Police say they’ve spent a big chunk of money on officer training with very little to show for it from the funding promised to municipalities to ease the process of legalizing pot.
Some of the provincial money is helping to pay for a public awareness program and data gathering at the Region of Peel. Meanwhile, the existence of legal cannabis in Brampton doesn’t appear to be making even a dent in illicit dispensaries.
It’s a fact that escapes the notice of most Peel residents: the region is one of the top areas in Canada for the horrific and often lucrative crime of human sex trafficking.
A conference over the next two days will bring together experts to discuss how to rein in perpetrators and how to help women and girls heal from the devastation of human trafficking. Family Services of Peel wants this declared a public health crisis.
The province’s choice to go back to a discarded plan for a new highway from Vaughan to the 401, skirting Brampton, is a “1950s solution to a 2020 problem,” according to those concerned about the environmental impact.
The argument that it will ease traffic congestion in the GTA is undermined by a 2015 panel’s findings that the benefits of the project were overblown. But opponents will find they’re up against formidable forces in the development industry and a Doug Ford government determined to help them.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and other Peel Police Services Board members lashed out against Quebec’s Bill 21, which limits religious expression in public life, passing a motion Friday to encourage potential candidates from the neighbouring province to apply for jobs with Peel police.
But at the same meeting, they remained largely silent when a scathing diversity audit of their own police department was addressed.
The lessons learned from the recent Raptors NBA championship run can be applied to city building. Brampton needs to set a bold and independent course, to come up with a game plan that has a definitive goal of winning. The Raptors are champs because they recognized their shortcomings and changed course. It’s now Brampton’s turn.
A blueprint for creating new affordable housing stock, the plan approved Thursday by Peel Region’s Strategic Housing and Homelessness Committee foresees providing 5,364 new units by 2034.
This in a region struggling with a booming population, worsening affordability issues, and a years-long wait list. But it’s far from clear where the funding will come from for the ambitious eight-phase plan.
A GTA therapy and treatment provider for children, ErinoakKids, announced Monday that it will lay off 291 staff members due to provincial cuts to autism funding.
The Ford government’s controversial decision to upend the Ontario Autism Program and give payments to families rather than providers has had a direct effect on service, leaving wait-listed parents of autistic kids worried about where it’s all headed.
A large portion of the high school teachers and all of the elementary teachers declared “surplus to board” by the Peel District School Board earlier this year will be recalled for this fall.
However, it still leaves a large number stuck in precarious long-term occasional or day-to-day supply teaching.
Calls involving domestic disputes — between family members or intimate partners — are far and away the biggest reason people call police in Peel Region.
Solving the issues behind domestic violence, which cut across culture and class, in an incredibly diverse region, isn’t easy. But Family Services of Peel has some proactive ideas.
Preventing vulnerable people from getting the legal help they need isn’t just cruel; it’s “faulty math” that ends up costing everyone, leaders of Peel Region’s legal aid clinics told regional councillors on Thursday.
Emotional responses — and a motion to take action — followed their presentation.
If people don’t stop discarding single-use plastics used for little more than convenience, we can kiss our oceans, and our very way of life, goodbye.
A $700,000 cut to court services puts Peel Regional Police and the regional municipality between a rock and a hard place, as Acting Chief Chris McCord pointed out in an update to council Thursday.
Local police are required by law to transport prisoners to court, which means they’ll have to find the money somewhere if the province refuses to pony up.
Amarjot Sandhu’s move to build a controversial highway puts him in good company with Mayor Patrick Brown, who thinks the project would help Brampton’s economy.
The plan also promotes sprawl — encouraging policies that appear in Doug Ford’s developer-friendly Bill 108.
The “devastating” effects of the developer-friendly omnibus bill, as described by municipalities, did nothing to slow its passage through the Legislature last week.
Nor did critics’ doubts that it will do much to meet the stated aim of improving the supply, and lowering the cost, of housing in Ontario.
Now, Peel Region and Brampton are grappling with the significant impact of the bill’s sweeping changes to revenues and planning, many of which could mean rising property tax and utility rates for local residents.
A $2.375-million injection from the province will help the Peel-Dufferin branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association expand police-mental health crisis teams, rapid response addiction clinics and peer support at hospitals.
But with an increase in cases across the GTA, if we’re hit by a spike in opioid emergencies like the one Peterborough just experienced, will our services be ready?
Our memory of D-Day on this 75th anniversary is fading, like the footsteps on Juno Beach. But the young men and women in Brampton who proudly serve their country, continue a long and storied history.
The More Homes, More Choices Act won’t do much to improve housing affordability, say opposition MPPs, who blasted the governing PCs for cutting off public consultation on the bill after just one day.
Instead, they say, the main beneficiaries will be developers, who get a series of breaks while cities suffer a loss of revenue and control over their own planning.
Some 45 families on Peel’s waiting list for affordable housing will benefit from last month’s announcement of federal funding for a new residential building.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that’s just a drop in the bucket as more and more people across the region get squeezed out of a real estate market that does not offer prices many can afford.
The Peel Police annual report shows the severity of crime is increasing in the fast-growing region, continuing a pattern begun in 2014 and paralleling the urban experience across Canada.
However, Mississauga and Brampton remain safer than many other cities, with a violent crime rate well below the provincial average.
And with increases to the police budget, the number of officers per capita is going up in keeping with the region’s population boom.
On Monday, Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath tabled a bill that would shrink the province’s ability to act unilaterally on municipal issues.
The bill would ensure that the province do proper consultations and receive approval from municipalities before making changes to boundaries or council composition.
While unlikely to go anywhere, the bill’s intent likely has support in Brampton, where Ford is wreaking havoc on the city’s future.
Peel Regional Police are in the hot seat again at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, in a case where a mother claims the fact her daughter is Black prompted an “excessive level of police force and brutality” that included restraints on her wrists and ankles.
Police say the 2016 incident at a Mississauga public school involved “out of control” behaviour, so the girl was handcuffed to keep her and others safe. The force is still reeling from a scathing equity-diversity audit that painted a disturbing picture of a predominantly white police department out of step with the diverse community it serves.
From the $205 million Brampton City Hall extension to land deals involving the Ontario PCs and his run for a seat in the Italian Senate, Mario Cortellucci has been a part of a string of controversies. The multi-millionaire developer doesn’t do many interviews in the mainstream media, but his name is often involved in questionable real estate transactions that usually involve municipal and provincial politicians.
Ontario cities got a break from some of the Ford government’s draconian cuts this week, but Bill 108 looms large as a fresh threat.
Changes to development charges could mean homeowner tax increases, less green space and more concrete for big developments, and a return to less local control over planning decisions.
Those were some of the potential effects outlined for city council by Brampton staff, who are worried about the Ford government’s impact on the city’s future.
Facing a widespread backlash across Ontario, the Doug Ford PC government has stepped back from a suite of cuts to the municipal sector that would have left Peel $40 million short, compared to previous funding levels for a range of crucial services.
The turn-around means that public health, policing, early childcare and other areas of core service delivery in Peel will not be hit as hard as once thought.
Under the Doug Ford PC government, land-use policy in Brampton and across Southern Ontario has become a critical issue. As our population continues to explode, will the rest of the region be given over to developers for more sprawl, which causes immense economic and social problems?
Developer Mario Cortellucci’s story, with his relationship to the PC government, is a cautionary tale that shows how the construction industry usually gets what it wants.
Brampton didn’t have a very good showing in the recent debate over its future. Is community and political involvement near impossible in our ‘me’ era of hyper-consumerism, with its slavish drive to replace citizenship with a different type of desire?
Provincial cuts to Peel Regional Police are expected to be as high as $2.6 million. The changes to funding come at a time when violent crime is on the rise and could limit the organization’s agility in responding to the alarming wave of crime over the past year.
The police service does not yet know how the cuts will impact service delivery.
Peel Council joins other municipal governments across Ontario set to launch publicity campaigns to draw attention to the sweeping cuts being made by Premier Doug Ford and his PC government. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and other politicians have highlighted the impact the province’s moves will have on flood prevention, vaccinations, dental screening for children, early childcare and many other programs that will either lose funding or have to be protected by municipal taxpayers who will suffer most as a result of Ford’s recent cuts. He has said they are a necessity if Ontario’s out-of-control debt is to be reined in.
A tug of war over Ernst and Young’s $600,000 report on the financial outcomes of different governance models for Peel Region highlights the uncertain future for more than 1.5 million residents. Another tense council meeting Thursday, with Brampton and Mississauga members interpreting the report’s findings differently and once again unable to come to any common ground on the region’s future, likely marks the end of the local debate. It’s now up to Premier Doug Ford and his PC colleagues at Queen’s Park to decide what type of municipal structure Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon residents will be governed by in the future.
A recent exchange of letters between members of the PC government and Peel educators reveals the candid disagreement over the way proposed cuts to education are being handled. The provincial government says many in the education system are fear mongering, creating anxiety about teacher losses and sweeping classroom changes that are being exaggerated. Educators have fired back against Peel PC MPPs, saying that teacher layoffs will be a reality while students will lose key educational options as certain classes will have to be cut.
By the end of the workday Tuesday, a finalized consultant’s report commissioned by Peel Region to provide crucial feedback about its future to the province still wasn’t ready.
The entire handling of the region’s position regarding the possibility of its dissolution has been poorly managed since the Doug Ford government’s surprise launch of the potentially game-changing regional review in January.
It’s unlikely councillors and the public will get to even see the consultant’s work before it goes to the province, if it’s ready ahead of the midnight deadline.
Anti-Muslim agitator Kevin Johnston has been ordered to pay $2.5 million in damages regarding derogatory remarks against restaurant owner and philanthropist Mohamad Fakih.
The “hateful Islamophobic remarks” in a 2017 video outside a Paramount restaurant in Mississauga were only the latest in a series of anti-Muslim activities by Johnston.
Death and perseverance.
They’re part of the story of Brampton Centre MPP Sara Singh’s election victory.
But there’s an even deeper story to what drew her into politics, and what fires her up at Queen’s Park when it’s time to speak for the Opposition as the NDP Deputy Leader.
A $1.8-million Peel Region program will provide a one-stop hub for services for victims of human trafficking, plus emergency shelter and long-term transitional housing spaces to help them get back to a normal life.
Providing these supports is especially critical in Peel, which for reasons of geography has become a hotbed of sex trafficking in Canada.
The region hopes to get some financial support from Queen’s Park, but it’s uncertain if the current government is likely to provide it.
