Brampton council will decide city’s official position on Peel Region’s future this week

Yorkregion.com
May 21, 2019
Graeme Frisque

Brampton council will debate and decide the city’s official position regarding the province’s ongoing regional governance review at a special council meeting on Tuesday, May 21.

While Brampton’s Peel Region counterparts in Mississauga and Caledon have already made their positions clear, Canada’s ninth-largest city opted to wait until public consultations were complete and further analysis became available.

Residents are invited to attend the special meeting, to be held in council chambers at city hall starting at 7 p.m.

The city expects the Ford government to decide whether Peel Region -- and 78 other upper and lower-tier municipalities across Ontario -- will be amalgamated, dissolved or remain as is before the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in August.

Brampton expects answer from Ford government on Peel Region’s future by August
On March 20, Mississauga council passed a motion in principle asking the provincial government to allow that city to separate from Peel and operate as an independent city.

Caledon council, on the other hand, cast its support behind two-tier governance and keeping the 45-year regional partnership with Mississauga and Brampton intact during its April 30 council meeting.

Brampton has held two public town halls on the subject seeking the public input.

The first was a telephone town hall on April 24 that saw 5,000 residents take part with 66 per cent in support of maintaining the status quo.

Twenty-eight per cent preferred amalgamation into a Peel "super city," while only six per cent favoured Brampton independence.

A sparsely attended public meeting on May 4 at Brampton city hall yielded similar results, with a majority of delegates casting their support behind regional governance and Peel Region.

Residents were also given the opportunity to weigh-in through a survey on the city’s website. Those survey results are expected to be made public at the special meeting.

Following council's decision on an official position, the city said it would make its final submission to the province’s regional governance review team, including all survey results and public comments.

Brampton’s been holding off on issuing an official position in anticipation of an Ernst & Young financial analysis expected to be released the same day as the special meeting.

An analysis and audit commissioned exploring all three possibilities for Peel by the region earlier this year by Deloitte Canada found amalgamation and dissolution would be the costliest options for taxpayers in all three municipalities, while maintaining the regional status quo would be the most cost effective.

However, Peel Region council voted to commission the Ernst & Young report after Mississauga called the Deloitte reports findings into question.