Council is expected to ratify the 2024 budget at a meeting next week, following amendments by members to the first financial blueprint presented by the mayor under new powers designated to the head of council. After 2023’s divisive process, which resulted in a mismanaged increase of 10.5 percent that was implemented long after the usual public approval procedure, this year’s budget decision could be just as controversial, with a proposal to freeze the 2024 budget with no increase.
A groundbreaking approach being adopted by municipalities across North America will be implemented in St. Catharines. “Social Procurement” is the use of public funds—tax dollars provided by the residents of an area—to procure products, services and human resources that directly create social and economic benefits for the community.
The City of Brampton and Sheridan College, along with local social service groups, government bodies and other post-secondary institutions, signed the Guiding Principles of the Brampton Charter for Improving the International Student Experience on December 18. The City has failed to provide adequate affordable student housing for years, while colleges have targeted international students, who pay much higher fees, without creating a safe learning and living environment for them.
After almost three decades of climate negotiations, for the first time at COP28, nations agreed that fossil fuel production is limiting global ability to keep within temperature targets set in Paris in 2015. But once the initial joy over the novel agreement wore off, groups began to identify loopholes that would allow bad actors profiting from oil & gas to continue harming our planet.
Repeated incidents of tree-cutting in the area of Martindale Pond, a crucial habitat for a number of endangered and other species at risk, and inconsistent enforcement to punish violations by homeowners raise questions about how serious St. Catharines is about protecting its limited remaining tree canopy.
Fifteen young Canadians from across the country, brought together by their climate activism to safeguard a sustainable future, are tweaking their arguments after a recent decision by the federal court of appeal allowed the case against the Liberal government, alleging its failure to ensure their safety, to proceed to trial. The decision comes at the end of a year that saw major progress in climate litigation across North America.
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Canada has rolled out its standards for adoption of electric vehicles across the country.
While the policy provides ambitious targets for EV takeup, industry experts say costs need to come down, charging infrastructure has to be ramped up and the domestic supply chain won’t be able to compete with foreign players if the market grows too fast for our fledgling EV industry.
After years of financial neglect by City staff and elected officials, Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services will see $29.8 million in capital spending as part of the City’s 2024 budget.
Fire union president Chris Varcoe says there is a sense of relief among staff who for decades have worked in stations that are in desperate need of upgrades.
This article highlighting the ongoing struggles of international students was originally published in September: The Region of Peel had issued a letter to the federal and provincial government requesting stronger support systems for international students in Peel. Ongoing issues continue to put young people at risk with little action for more than a decade. A lack of housing, falling prey to sex traffickers and the absence of support from colleges and governments that gladly accept money from families, has created an ongoing crisis that often leads to tragic consequences.
People like St. Catharines’ Gertrud Liho are not looking forward to opening their municipal tax bill in 2024. The City passed an alarming 10.5 percent property levy increase late this year, with hardly any consultation and long after the usual public approval process. In an economic climate that is putting pressure on residents from every direction, with costs rising well above salaries, those like Liho, who lives on a fixed income, want municipal leaders to be extra cautious when spending the taxpayers’ money.
Black leaders have for generations warned others about the often crippling price they continue to pay just to protect their communities from harm. Former Brampton Citizen of the Year Danielle Dowdy has worked tirelessly for years and says focussing on her well-being will allow her to rejuvinate, with so much work still to be done.
With a recent history of having to fill vacancies, St. Catharines City Council contemplates a revised policy considered un-democratic by some, while others see it as an opportunity to improve equity and diversity in municipal representation.
With a perfect storm of fiscal pressures challenging municipal finances, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, through the use of her strong mayor powers, approved the 2024 budget on Tuesday including a 2.3 percent tax increase on the local share for residential property owners. Combined with the Region of Peel’s tax and utility increase, Mississauga homeowners will pay an additional $473, on average, next year.
The federal government announced on Monday the City of Mississauga will receive $112.9 million through its Housing Accelerator Fund—an incentive that aims to help deliver more homes and improve affordability. The funding deal comes less than two weeks after council approved Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s Mayoral Directive, through her strong mayor powers granted by the province, to permit four-plexes “as of right” city-wide to increase Mississauga’s dense housing supply.
After damning internal probes forced the PCs to walk back much of the destructive land use policy the Doug Ford government rammed through, Housing Minister Paul Calandra announced Peel could reverse its heavily influenced, controversial decision to open up 11,000 acres for future development.
But the Council-approved plan, passed under fear the PCs could make things even worse, has yet to be revisited.
Despite the best efforts of local members, St. Catharines’ beloved Walker Family YMCA has been closed, and years of community advocacy is being abandoned. Local residents feel betrayed, after their donations were used to open the facility decades ago. The YMCA board chose to sell the building to a developer, and despite paying some of the highest property taxes in Ontario, the City’s Mayor, Mat Siscoe, says a partnership with the municipality would be too costly. Residents warn it will be far more expensive to open a brand new City recreation centre, when the perfect space already exists.
Premier Doug Ford is refusing to release a review of provincial work on implementation of Ontario’s landmark accessibility legislation, despite a legal obligation to do so.
Previous investigations have detailed widespread failures by successive governments to improve accessibility across Ontario, leaving nearly 3 million residents living with disabilities to navigate “soul-crushing barriers” on a daily basis.
In a press conference where he provided no evidence to support the government’s decision, and made false or misleading claims, Housing Minister Paul Calandra announced Wednesday the dissolution of the Region of Peel will no longer move forward as mandated under legislation.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie took an optimistic tone, viewing the work already done as the first phase toward Peel’s break up and Mississauga’s disentanglement from ongoing financial mismanagement in Brampton.
Projects promised by Patrick Brown are nowhere to be found in his proposed 2024 Brampton budget, with funding for an LRT, downtown redevelopment, university, the Riverwalk and cricket stadium among the plans that lack required investment to make them happen.
Cuts to capital spending ignore aging infrastructure assets that will need repair or replacement within the next 20 years.
Tuesday’s grand opening of a new youth hub in the community of Malton, which has long been isolated from the rest of Mississauga by Pearson Airport and industrial barriers, signals a positive change for the area’s youth population.
The project to convert the former Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School pool surfaced after a 2016 staff report identified a critical need for a dedicated space for youth, with sufficient programming and services lacking in the community.
The Niagara Transit Commission will consider reductions to the Transit budget, back a second time, after Regional Councillors were miffed when the first attempt at mitigation measures went nowhere.
Welland’s first strong mayor budget is approved, while a requested legal opinion related to the North Welland trail comes to Council. The environmental assessment process begins in an attempt to solve long-standing flooding issues in Fort Erie’s Thunder Bay area, the likely result of disturbances to the lake’s water levels.
Brampton’s Goreway Power Station and Emerald Energy from Waste incinerator are the two largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions across the city. While repeated calls from environmental organizations stress the local need to reduce GHGs, both of these operations are slated for massive expansions. If approved, Brampton can kiss its emissions reduction targets goodbye.
The federal government announced the Global Methane Pledge at COP 28 Monday, solidifying a previous commitment to decrease the gas sector’s methane emissions by 75 percent by 2030, and 40 to 45 percent overall below 2012 levels.
Ontario, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction, expanding natural gas use for electricity production.
Jane and her family are suing the government of Ontario and senior administrators of the province’s schools for the deaf and blind, detailing years of abuse and mismanagement in a statement of claim filed last year and previously detailed by The Pointer.
Now, the family has received further information about Jane’s treatment, raising concern over the alleged lack of action when explicit images of their underage daughter were found on the device of a fellow student.
At a special meeting called after Niagara Regional Council had rejected a 7.1 percent budget increase, equating to almost $13 million in additional expenditures, the Niagara Regional Police Services Board approved $2 million in cuts, mostly by deferring a handful of the 40 positions being proposed for 2024.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, who will challenge Doug Ford for the premier’s job when she takes over the Liberal leadership, is asking him for clarity on the future of Peel’s regional government, after Patrick Brown once again used the work for a compromised Deloitte report—discredited by regional councillors when behind-the-scenes interference by senior staff was exposed—to justify keeping regional government intact.
With the Province offering limited information on Minister’s Zoning Order reversals following legislation introduced in October by Housing Minister Paul Calandra, the surprise decision to double Mississauga’s Lakeview Village development from 8,000 to 16,000 units could be overturned, or left as is.
City Council hopes the PC government’s admission of interference and subsequent legislation will allow the huge project to be scaled back to what was originally agreed upon.
Following several months of delays as more evidence was uncovered, the case against former Peel CAS director of finance Marino Cader, who was charged in November 2022 with defrauding the organization of more than a quarter million dollars, is finally heading to trial in January.
Charges against Andre Paul, a former maintenance coordinator with Peel CAS and the co-accused alongside Cader, have been withdrawn, the Crown Attorney revealed on Monday.
In light of the possible reconsideration to dissolve the Region of Peel, The Pointer is republishing a 2019 freedom of information investigation into the behind the scenes effort of senior staff at the Region of Peel, at the time, to undermine Mississauga's position.
The FOI documents revealed that a report by Deloitte was heavily influenced by Peel Region staff who did not want to see their government dissolved to make way for Mississauga to become a single-tier, independent municipality.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown is now using previously discredited work to push back against any decision to grant Mississauga its independence.
Patrick Brown has released his proposed Mayor’s Budget for 2024.
Despite the need to accommodate more than 200,000 new residents within eight years, under the Province’s housing plan, and a string of promises Brown has made since first running for election in 2018—a world class cricket stadium, an underground light rail line, a standalone university, a downtown transformation, a spectacular riverwalk, to name a few—priorities for residents are once again largely ignored by Brown in his first budget under the new Strong Mayor Powers granted by Queen’s Park.
Two Mississauga councillors have confirmed with The Pointer their intention to seek the mayor’s seat, now that Bonnie Crombie will be moving on to provincial politics.
Others are not ruling it out, while some big names in the city’s political scene have not made any announcement, yet.
Welland Mayor Frank Campion proposed a 2.69 percent increase to the City’s operating budget. A special meeting related to possible amendments, the first of two to be held, allowed Council members to add to and subtract from the Mayor’s budget.
Lincoln Councillors will hear about a potential 201-unit proposal, with an affordable housing aspect and purpose-built rentals, sorely lacking in the community.
The Niagara Regional Police Services Board considers mitigation measures to bring the Police budget increase down, while Regional Council sends the Transit Commission budget back, a second time. Welland Council members propose 22 more amendments to the Mayor’s budget.
Following a legal challenge by a group of plastic producers, backed by the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the American plastic industry, Canada’s federal court handed down a decision that could impact the country’s single-use plastic ban.
An international treaty to end plastic pollution could provide a roadmap for advocates here to eliminate waste.
A new reception centre next to Pearson International Airport, which straddles Peel and Toronto, will provide support to asylum claimants as shelter systems face increasing strain.
The announcement follows a list of requests from Acting Mississauga Mayor Chris Fonseca to the federal government so Peel’s overwhelmed shelter system can better respond to unprecedented demand. All three levels of government have been blaming each other for the emergency housing crisis.
CBM—the company behind a controversial mega-blasting quarry proposed in Caledon—has let the Town know it will appeal council’s effort to rein in the gravel industry.
The move signals the company’s disregard for concerns about widespread environmental damage, a pattern of the multinational corporation that owns CBM and has a deeply troubled track record.
The mayor called former councillor Jeff Bowman’s involvement with the Historic Bovaird House an “embarrassment” to Brampton, claiming the former councillor had an “egregious, flagrant conflict of interest” related to its funding.
A week after Brown’s latest unsubstantiated attack on Bowman, a report by KPMG, hired by the City to investigate the matter, found no wrongdoing by Bowman and no irregularities or inconsistencies with city policies around the Bovaird House funding issue, which Brown and Councillor Rowena Santos have used for more than a year to go after their critics.
The figure is not a combined increase, but a proposal to expand the Region’s tax-supported budget by 10.6 percent and its charge for utilities by 6.8 percent. It would result in a property tax increase of at least 4.5 percent, to cover Peel Region’s share, before each of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon add their own share to the 2024 tax bill.
For those already struggling to pay their bills, such steep increases raise questions about why regional staff are asking taxpayers to fund such a huge budget expansion in the last year before the Region of Peel is dissolved.
After two years of lower emissions due to the global slowdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, greenhouse gas emissions have rebounded, in a big way.
Global data from the United Nations Environment Programme and local data from The Atmospheric Fund show Earth’s major weather systems are undergoing profound changes as increased levels of carbon in our air alter the way we live.
With the new year just around the corner, Niagara municipalities are busy with their 2024 budgets. This year is different, however, for Niagara’s three largest lower-tier municipalities, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland, with the Province’s introduction of the Strong Mayor Powers.
At the upper-tier Niagara Region, the proposed police budget was sent back but the CAO warns of a still-sobering financial ask of taxpayers.
As disturbing levels of harm continue to shatter communities across Ontario, municipalities and advocacy groups have officially declared that gender-based violence has reached epidemic levels.
Despite increasing numbers of women killed at the hands of men all across the province, the PC government refuses to make the same declaration.
Prior to the Greenbelt scandal, the PC government had granted a long-standing wish of the Town of Grimsby by finally unlocking two parcels of protected land for development. But when the controversial plan imploded, leading to weeks of scandal for Premier Doug Ford and his government, the decision was reversed and the lands returned to the Greenbelt.
In front of a packed council chamber Monday, councillors voted to request the PC government reverse its decision once again and allow development on lands the Town argues are crucial for residential and commercial growth.
At a Planning and Development Committee meeting in October, council members approved a motion to help move the Phase 2 expansion of Peel Memorial forward.
An emergency declaration last term called for a second hospital in the city with at least 850 acute-care beds to treat everything from heart attacks to broken bones. But William Osler officials and the PC government refuse to confirm if Brampton is actually going to get the hospital they have claimed will be delivered when Memorial’s expansion eventually opens.
St. Catharines has been recognized for its effort to fight the climate crisis.
A member of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, the City is working toward the target of net zero community emissions by 2050 after already meeting targets first set in 2015. As an interim goal, 2030 is the date for a series of new benchmarks the City hopes to set.
“Brampton’s democracy is under siege”. Those were the stunning words written in a letter signed by a majority of council members in 2022, after widespread allegations of misconduct under Patrick Brown’s leadership led to a series of external investigations that he eventually cancelled.
A year later, the department that functions as the main watchdog holding City Hall accountable to taxpayers, is struggling with staffing issues, the latest in a string of problems for Internal Audit since Brown became mayor.
After promising a robust public consultation process for the Region of Niagara’s 2024 budget, it has taken months for the municipality to take any meaningful steps toward public engagement.
A survey to gather feedback was launched November 13, but the budget process is already well underway with key decisions being made without a chance for public consultation.
A report from Ontario’s Protected Areas Working Group — which sat dormant for two years — encourages the PC government to invest $400 million for the protection of vital lands across the province.
The goal is for 30 percent of the overall geographic area to be included, compared to the 11 percent that is currently protected.
On Wednesday, St. Catharines’ 2024 budget process begins in earnest with staff presenting operating, capital and water and wastewater budgets.
Unique in this budget process will be the presentation of the first, three-year budgets for the municipality. A Monday Grimsby Council report outlines the twist and turns over two decades for two parcels of land that were returned to the Greenbelt but arguably should not have been included in the first place.
A recent death at an encampment outside Mississauga’s Dundas Shelter has sparked outrage over Peel’s dangerously underfunded shelter system which is currently 321 percent over-capacity.
While Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown is claiming it’s the fault of upper levels of government, he failed to mention his refusal to expand municipal budgets, his recent eviction of those living in an encampment and the failure of regional councillors, including himself, who have refused to adequately fund affordable housing and Peel’s shelter system for years.
Justin Trudeau’s woes continue, as voters who support the Prime Minister for his stated commitment to address climate change question contradictions between his words and his actions. Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment recently released three audit reports that paint a bleak picture of the country’s 2030 emissions reductions targets. Under Trudeau’s leadership, the plan is falling far short of its goals.
