Battle lines cemented in Peel after Brampton council makes position on region’s future official

Yorkregion.com
May 22, 2019
Graeme Frisque

Mississauga is on one side, Brampton and Caledon are on the other.

At a special meeting on May 21, Brampton council voted unanimously in favour of the city officially supporting the two-tier municipal government model currently in place in the Region of Peel.

Mississauga council made its desire to be independent of the region clear to the province in March, while Caledon council cast its support behind the keeping the region at the end of April.

Brampton council left making its position official until the 11th hour, with the province’s public consultation deadline expiring at 11:59 p.m. the night of the special meeting.

“Whether it’s the Deloitte Report, the Ernst & Young report, whether it’s engaging research over the opinions of our community or whether it’s getting a legal opinion, we we’ve done as a city is to make sure we didn’t make a decision first and then afterwards do the research,” Mayor Patrick Brown told council.

“And that’s why we’re making this decision on the last day available to provide input to the province,” he added.

Council received a presentation from Joseph Angolano, Vice President of Main Street Research, which the city commissioned to do a scientific survey of Brampton residents’ views on the issue.

City staff believes the review could wrap up as early as August ahead of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) general meeting that month.

Main Street conducted two surveys including 1,500 residents in both Brampton and across Peel Region. One focused on Brampton only, while the other focused on the region as a whole.

In addition to finding that only half of respondents across the region even knew about the province's review, the survey found 66.4 per cent of Bramptonians favoured keeping the regional structure as is, while 25.4 per cent would prefer to see governance in all three communities amalgamated at the regional level. Only 8.2 per cent of respondents favoured de-amalgamation of the region.

In Caledon, 63.5 per cent of respondents favoured keeping the Peel Region intact, with 17 per cent desiring a Peel mega city and 19.5 per cent preferring Caledon independence.

The results were very different in Mississauga. In that city, only 34.2 per cent of those surveyed favoured keeping the 45-year regional government model as is, with 48.3 per cent supporting Canada’s sixth-largest city leaving Peel. Those preferring a City of Peel accounted for 17.5 per cent of Mississauga respondents.

For Brampton, the Main Street findings were similar to other survey results and input provided at public town halls hosted by the city.

A telephone town hall in April that drew 5,000 Brampton residents found 66 per cent of those surveyed supported the status, while the results of an online survey on the city’s website between April 29 and May 15 showed similar results.

The city said it will include all public comments and survey results as part of its official submission to the province’s review team.

"Here we are all these years later, and the same analysis that they did in 1974 appears to be true today, that the Region of Peel has merit. This has now been looked over by two reputable international institutions, and it's important we make decisions that are made based on facts," said Brown of council's decision.