NRU talks to Brampton’s new mayor BUILDING OPPORTUNITIES

NRU
Dec. 3, 2014
Leah Wong

Brampton’s new mayor Linda Jeffrey says the city needs to find a way to keep its young people around.

“Right not they go away to school and they don’t come back,” said Jeffrey. “I need young people to say Brampton is a fun place to be, [with great] jobs and opportunities.”

Jeffrey officially took office on Monday, replacing Susan Fennell who served as mayor for 14 years. The October election ended with a substantial victory for Jeffrey, who resigned from her position on Premier Kathleen Wynne’s cabinet as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in late March to run for mayor.

In order to keep the younger population in Brampton, Jeffrey said there needs to be opportunities for them to live, work and play within the community. To achieve this, the city needs to focus on improving transit.

“If you build good transit in your community it really helps build other economic opportunities,” said Jeffrey.

Another area that Jeffrey said the city should be capitalizing on is its investments in healthcare facilities. She said facilities such as Peel Memorial Hospital and ErinoakKids Centre for Treatment and Development can be used as a springboard for more investments.

“Peel Memorial Hospital and ErinoakKids are huge life sciences-type investments in our community,” said Jeffrey. “I want to make sure we start developing a pipeline for skilled labour for our healthcare sector.”

One of the ways Jeffrey says this can be achieved is through creating more postsecondary opportunities in the city. She plans to create a blue ribbon panel that will focus on bringing a university to Brampton, and has already asked former premier Bill Davis to be involved in the process.

A criticism of the previous administration that came out during the election was Brampton’s failure to successfully submit a bid to the province for a new university campus. Brampton staff had worked on a bid for a University of Guelph campus in partnership with Centennial College, which in the end failed to meet the criteria outlined by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Jeffrey said Brampton’s failure to submit a university bid isn’t the city’s only missed opportunity.

“We’ve squandered opportunities to host things like the Pan Am games,” said Jeffrey. “We need to make sure we’re back at the table having conversations about transit and other tourism opportunities that will help build jobs and pride in Brampton.”

Jeffrey previously served as a Brampton councillor from 1991 to 2003, before being elected an MPP. She’s concerned with the state of the city’s finances and the behaviour of council in recent years. Her big focus coming into the new term will be restoring accountability and transparency to the city.

“Brampton has been in the news for all the wrong reasons,” said Jeffrey. “I want to raise the bar and work with the new council on bringing in an era of openness and transparency to city hall.”

One of the first things on Jeffrey’s list is to reduce the salary of the mayor, to around that of a provincial cabinet member. In recent years Brampton has been reported to have the highest paid mayor in Canada, with Fennell reportedly earning more than $213,000. In comparison Jeffrey earned around $165,000 as a cabinet minister.

Jeffrey says she would also like to revisit the code of conduct and conflict of interest policies. She has asked the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to create a customized training program for Brampton council, which will talk about challenges the city has had in the past.

“[I want to] make sure everybody understands the responsibilities of a councillor,” said Jeffrey. “It’s not just the new people we need to work with. Obviously the returning councillors also had some challenges dealing with their expenses and procurement.”

In the first few months of the term Jeffrey also said she expects a discussion about the makeup of Peel Region council. She’s long been opposed to the municipalities’ seat allocations, having spoken out against the Regional Municipality of Peel Act in 2005 despite it being a Liberal initiative. The act determines the composition of regional council, giving Mississauga 12 seats, Brampton seven and Caledon five.

“Brampton has not been served by the current formula. It hasn’t reflected the kind of growth we have,” said Jeffrey. “I want to get this [discussion] rolling and I want to make sure we have adequate representation.”