It was like the tale of Cinderella: before the clock struck midnight, and the possibility of things turning bad for both the province and CUPE education workers, they were able to power through and come to a tentative agreement. The news Sunday evening was much needed relief and comfort for tens of thousands of parents in Peel, as they were bracing for a full-on strike that would have left their kids stranded. Instead, other than some before-school programs Monday morning, it’s business as usual.
Mississauga and Brampton, two cities that pose unique challenges for parents, are planning programming for children at community centres in the event of a walkout by school support workers on Monday. Many parents were blindsided by an abrupt announcement by the Peel public and Catholic school boards that schools will close if CUPE and the province fail to reach an agreement before the strike deadline at midnight Sunday.
With societal changes, libraries are taking up the new challenge of becoming community hubs — with a particular mission to be safe spaces for vulnerable and homeless people. Mississauga now employs social worker Kevin Berry to work with library staff to offer support, help and services to people who walk through library doors every day. Berry is asking Brampton to consider adopting the same strategy to help its growing homeless population.
Tens of thousands of parents across Peel are scrambling after Thursday’s alarming announcement by Peel’s public school board and its Catholic board that they will shut all students out Monday if 55,000 CUPE education workers across Ontario go on strike. The union has stated that is what will happen if a contract deal can’t be struck by then. The Pointer heard from parents across Mississauga and Brampton, who are now desperately trying to figure out what they will do if the shutdown happens.
Carmen Spada, a multi-instrument musician who leads local nonprofit B-Jazzed, spoke before council this week, asking why three community organizations are being told they may no longer need to compete for grants, while others must meet even higher criteria for funding than before. He said the City of Brampton initiated a meeting with a group of eight to 10 organizations in June, asking for feedback on how to conduct a review of its Community Grants Program.
Chief Nish Duraiappah has officially taken on his post as head of the Peel Regional Police. Just before his swearing-in ceremony, he shared his vision for the future of policing in Mississauga and Brampton. With rising violent crime on the minds of an anxious public, there are many challenges that face the young chief, who takes over after the controversial tenure of Jennifer Evans.
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For the second time in as many weeks, the NDP’s five Brampton candidates gathered together to announce healthcare plans for the city Monday night. Mostly, the plan combines previous nationally focused promises with a new pledge to “create a national autism strategy.” But the barrage of NDP media events in Brampton does reveal the importance the party leadership is placing on the city’s five ridings.
Dirtier hallways, less help checking in at the office and an absence of early childhood educators could all become a reality come Monday, when 55,000 school support staff across the province, already engaged in a work-to-rule campaign, are set to walk off the job entirely. The planned walkout follows a failed round of negotiations with the province and the Council of Trustees’ Associations. Questions are being raised about the timing of the action, with the federal election in the backdrop.
Accusing the provincial PC government of “dragging their heels” on disbursing money from Ottawa intended to help quell crime involving guns and gangs, the Liberal Leader is now promising to give municipalities money directly. It’s not clear how much of the five-year funding pledged within the Liberals’ “stronger gun control” platform would end up in Peel Region, which has been dealing with a rapid rise in violent crime and received funding for anti-crime initiatives well below that of other large municipalities.
Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate, as young people in particular rely on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook to receive news and communicate with brands or individuals. However, as the federal election approaches, candidates in Mississauga and Brampton have done very little to engage younger voters using alternative or modern forms of communication. Where traditional telephone canvassing and door-knocking bypasses younger voters, social media provides a golden opportunity for engagement which, so far, political hopefuls are passing up.
When the public is clamouring for answers and crime is surging, what are police to do?
In Part 2 of this three-part series, The Pointer analyzes the violent summer of 2018 that saw shootings and violent crime in Mississauga and Brampton spike.
At the time, elected officials were staring down the barrel of a municipal election in the fall, and with the public demanding answers, there was an urgent need to act.
For a Peel District School Board custodian, underfunding of basic school operating costs is at the root of failed negotiations between non-teaching staff unions, the province and the Council of Trustees’ Associations. If a contract agreement is not reached soon, the work-to-rule job action could result in dirtier schools and office areas, among other effects.
The Conservative leader’s Monday campaign stop in Brampton included a pledge to provide federal relief from the growing gap between the city’s booming population and its infrastructure and public safety needs. But that promise was light on details, whereas he has promised more specific support for high-ticket projects in other major cities.
Yet again, the man trying to get re-elected to the highest office in the land is not speaking to local issues in the places he’s campaigning. Though Mississauga and Brampton often provide the backdrop during this federal election campaign, Trudeau’s carefully crafted messages avoid the specific needs of cities. Sunday’s event at UTM in Mississauga was no different.
An edited clip of a debate between Brampton West candidates hosted by Prime Asia Television appears to show Conservative Murarilal Thapliyal answering “no” to a question about whether he supports women’s and LGBTQ rights. But the clip being blasted out on social media by Kamal Khera cuts off attempts by the moderator to get clarification as well as her opponent's response, which clearly states he supports equal rights and a woman's right to choose. The manager of the outlet says he was pressured into releasing the video and that it was misused by Khera’s campaign on her social media platforms.
Candidates from the NDP, PPC, Greens and Communist Party turned out to a town hall held in Brampton on Sunday. The event, missed by all Liberal and Conservative candidates, highlighted Brampton’s healthcare issues and provided comprehensive explanations of the Canada Health Act and federal responsibility. Through several presentations, speakers offered their detailed information and testimony on healthcare issues that matter to Bramptonians ahead of the Oct. 21 election.
Residents of the Mississauga community of Malton have reason to be hopeful that they’ll see a return of their community police station following a horrendous shooting on Sept. 14 in which a 17-year-old bystander died. Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s move to review police operations in the neighbourhood — including response times — was carried unanimously on Friday.
After a recent week of incidents that have shaken many to the core, voters are looking to local leaders for actual leadership. We know federal policy and money is there to help solve local crime. We don’t need backbench MPs who mouth the party line between public photo opportunities. We expect more – real advocates for change.
The idea of hosting an official Diwali fireworks celebration in the city was first suggested to council in January. However, a significantly delayed staff report was only considered in September, leaving it too late to organize festivities for this year. Council, though, have supported delaying the event until 2020, where it could join Nuit Blanche in an exciting cultural calendar next fall.
Greta Thurnberg arrived in Montreal Friday to lead a mass climate demonstration, while Bramptonian school children skipped class to protest in favour of their future. At an event organized by a group of 20-year-old activists, candidates from the Greens, Liberals and NDP turned out to talk to young voters about their concerns. After the event, Liberal incumbent Ruby Sahota spoke to The Pointer about climate change and how she plans to address it on a local level.
Fires in basement apartments are not uncommon. Yvonne Squires had to deal with one next to her neighbour’s secondary suite and feared she was going to lose her own home.
With estimates of as many as 50,000 of these suites in Brampton and as many as 30,000 in Mississauga, the pillar of her community is not a fan of illegal two-unit dwellings, which she says allow landlords to take advantage of vulnerable international students and avoid taxes. She praised the City of Brampton for making headway in the battle against illegal basement units, but it's an issue that will only get worse if the region doesn't find solutions to its affordable housing crisis.
Speculation swirled Wednesday about the former head of Peel Region, who earlier this year tried to undermine Mississauga’s desired exit from the two-tier system of municipal government. Councillor Carolyn Parrish suggested David Szwarc might be considering a new position that could hurt the city’s chances of getting the divorce it so desperately wants.
Faced with a growing housing crisis, Mississauga councillors are calling on federal parties to offer long-term housing solutions. Karen Ras and George Carlson tell The Pointer that what’s needed is stable federal funding to allow long-term planning. In the meantime, they’ve been forced to get “creative” in their search for short-term solutions.
Nishan Duraiappah said his transition to top brass of the Peel Regional Police Service has been “remarkable.” But when he starts officially on Tuesday he will have a lot to contend with — rising gang violence, increasing homicides, and an outcry from the community of Malton to re-establish a police station there after a recent mass shooting. The badge may shine bright, but there is a certain darkness hanging over the region right now.
A new provincial dental care program being rolled out this fall will cover nearly 7,000 low-income seniors, a big boost from the 800 or so served by a regional program that preceded it. It’s being hailed as a good thing by councillors, particularly because it’s funded entirely by the province. Bad oral health leads to more than toothaches — it’s the reason for many ER visits, making preventative care one way to alleviate the “hallway healthcare” problem.
Court documents show the Brampton West MPP pleaded guilty this month to having two unregistered secondary suites in two properties in Brampton. The charges under the provincial Planning Act were laid just weeks before his election in June 2018. Sandhu told The Pointer the units were present when he bought the houses and that the city brought “a few inconsistencies” to his attention.
When the writ dropped on Sept. 11, the NDP was unable to name candidates in the majority of Mississauga’s federal ridings. This pattern, which played out nationally, was seen by many observers as an indication of internal chaos. Now, with just under a month until the election, the party finally boasts a full complement of candidates in Peel. However, a lack of profile and presence for some, combined with disappointing polling, will continue to worry the party leadership.
Disagreement between the Wards 7 and 8 councillors surfaced over a motion prompted by resident concerns about an assisted-living group home application in Ward 7. Fortini, who says the city’s group homes bylaw hasn’t been updated since 1993, isn’t sure it still complies with provincial regulation. But Williams contends there may be unintended consequences of a drawn-out review in a city that needs more housing for seniors, not less.
Concerns around vaping are making many customers rethink the habit after last week’s report of a London, Ont. teen who was put on life support to deal with a respiratory illness tied to vaping, as well as multiple confirmed deaths in the U.S.. One Mississauga vape shop owner said his sales have declined by 80 per cent in the past three weeks.
Non-teaching staff represented by CUPE plan to begin a work-to-rule campaign next week, after issuing a formal notice of job action on Wednesday. What that means for kids and families in Peel Region schools isn’t clear yet. Meanwhile, negotiations between the province and teachers’ unions continue, after their contracts expired at the end of August.
In 2015 Brampton Transit figured it would need a third bus storage and maintenance facility by 2021 to accommodate growing demand. A huge leap in ridership since then means the city needs even more buses — and space to garage them in winter. But that plan now faces a three-year delay while the city looks for extra money from upper-tier governments to cover the $150-million-plus cost of an expanded project. Where will all those buses go in the meantime?
Political loyalties are far from set in stone in Brampton and Mississauga ridings, which have flipped as one — twice — in recent elections.
Are the changes as dramatic as our first-past-the-post system make them seem? And why are Peel voters so mercurial?
Brampton’s first Active Transportation Master Plan pays special attention to improving the Flower City’s substandard cycling network, which currently includes only 11.3 kilometres of dedicated bike lanes. The plan calls for much stronger investment from council in new infrastructure. However, while the plan is robust in its suggestions for cyclists, some may feel pedestrians got short shrift.
While candidates and party leaders talk about the need for affordable housing and what they plan to do, the Region of Peel has received a clearer picture of the funding it will be getting from the federal and provincial governments to support affordable housing initiatives and development – it’s a bleak reality.
The nearly $30 million investment is welcome news, as is any influx of cash, but it’s not nearly enough. That will pay for only 144 new units over the next three years. The region wants to bring on 7,500 every year up to 2028.
With ambitious targets for carbon emissions reductions inline with the Paris Agreement on the table, Brampton is considering how best to fulfill its environmental responsibilities. As the Institute for Sustainable Brampton moves closer, one councillor explained to The Pointer that the city would do well to seek help from the private sector.
Meanwhile, plans to join an international coalition of municipalities fighting climate change have highlighted problems with the city’s plans. A staff report lists several key areas the city must deal with before any application to join would be accepted.
The controversy surrounding the unveiling of a picture of Justin Trudeau caught in brownface wasn’t a snapshot of vile racism, but one of white privilege. It exposes the background of a man whose character wasn’t formed on the smithy of hard work or a desperate attempt to prove his worth, but of someone who feasted on the limelight, and was surrounded by those from the same strata – who live in a bubble.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was in Brampton to let everyone know that he would, if re-elected, work to lower Canada’s notoriously high cellphone rates and exempt Canadians from paying federal income tax on their first $15,000 earned. But he offered no commitment to ensuring that Brampton and Mississauga get their fair share of funding to cope with rising crime and the stress put on city infrastructure and services by an influx of newcomers.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie had scheduled a debate tonight under the banner Mississauga Matters, with plans to quiz candidates across the city’s six ridings about how they would stand up for the funding needs of their home municipality. But the debate has been cancelled after the city couldn’t find enough candidates to take part. That raises questions about how committed federal hopefuls are to improving the city they hope will elect them in October.
In Mississauga and Brampton, 2018 was one of the most violent years in recent memory. Homicides, shootings, stabbings and many other types of violent crime all increased drastically.
As the violence unfolded over the first half of the year, the public were paying attention, but the police seemed caught off guard and political response was absent.
In Part 1 of this three-part series, The Pointer looks at the violent winter months and how they set the stage for one of the most troubling years on record.
Residents of the Lakeview community in Mississauga met on Thursday evening to discuss the impending redevelopment of the waterfront. While developers want to add height to existing plans, locals want to keep their view of the lake, with more parkland and activity space along the waterfront. In some situations, big developers would ignore such demands and forge ahead, yet Lakeview has a secret weapon.
A program implemented in Peel Region has become a model of excellence for long-term care homes across Ontario for how to best treat and look after those suffering from dementia. Known as the Butterfly Model, it puts the patient first and focuses on forging real bonds between patient and caregiver.
The benefits have been nothing short of remarkable.
Four years ago, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party was propelled to power on a series of promises, including a historic commitment to reform Canada’s first-past-the-post voting system. In Brampton and Mississauga, town halls and public meetings in 2016 heralded a nationwide consultation on the issue and asked Peel residents for their opinions. However, in 2017 the party abandoned its pledge and MPs have been silent on the issue ever since.
Less than a week after nine people were shot in separate ambushes in Mississauga and Brampton, leaving two dead, including a 17-year-old boy, the Liberals are promising sweeping measures to clamp down on gun violence.
The party announced Friday that it would ban “all military-style assault rifles” if elected. And, as the NDP has also pledged, they would allow cities to enact their own handgun bans.
The new Mississauga Matters campaign is pushing bold requests from the next Parliament: Rapid east-west transit along the lakeshore; a new transit terminal; and federal funding to restore the downtown LRT loop are among the items Mayor Bonnie Crombie, a former Liberal MP and veteran horse-trader, wants Ottawa’s help with after the federal election. Those issues, along with affordable housing, are the goals the city is prodding candidates (and voters) to consider in its three-pronged Mississauga Matters advocacy campaign. The priorities: infrastructure, transit and housing.
Arpan Khanna, vying to win the federal Brampton North riding, hopes to unseat Liberal incumbent Ruby Sahota, who holds a comfortable lead in current polls. In a conversation with The Pointer, the candidate, who has already had to apologize for posting a homophobic slur in a 2010 social media message, was less willing to get over Justin Trudeau’s history of blackface and brownface. On policy questions, he unabashedly toed the party line.
The NDP continued its intense campaign to win in Brampton’s five federal ridings this week, as local candidates promoted a policy to give most Canadians free or subsidized dental coverage as part of national healthcare. The move is part of a broader campaign by the NDP rooted in healthcare issues, arguably to appeal to Brampton’s swing ridings, where hallway medicine has been a huge issue for several years.
Decades-old images of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in blackface and brownface have rocked his election campaign.
But in Mississauga and Brampton, cities where two-thirds of residents are visible-minorities, attitudes seem largely unconcerned. Predictably, candidate responses broke along party lines.
Help with everyday issues, like affordable medications, tax breaks for parents and transportation — as well as the broader issue of what Canada is doing about the climate crisis — are all important issues to folks on the street in Streetsville, according to Liberal candidate Gagan Sikand, who hopes to repeat his 2015 victory in the riding.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, currently consumed by a blackface scandal, has been criticized in recent weeks for failing to make himself available to answer questions about key issues facing voters.
It appears to be a tactic being used by many in the Liberal party, including Brampton’s four incumbents. They have either refused or ignored repeated requests to defend their local record over the past four years and highlight what they promise to do for Brampton if elected again.
A report submitted to council suggests the city is gaining ground against an epidemic of unregistered, and often substandard, secondary units in Brampton.
Fire and enforcement staff presented a swath of data on registrations, complaints, charges, fines and more — including a repellant slideshow of violations — to show that dealing with the plague of illegal units isn’t insurmountable.
