Five facts about Peel Region as Ontario drops plan to dissolve it

The Canadian Press

Wed, December 13, 2023 at 4:34 p.m. EST·2 min read

Ontario is scrapping its plan to dissolve Peel Region west of Toronto, citing concerns that it would lead to significant municipal tax hikes. The province says it will instead focus on finding efficiencies in the regional government and improving its services.

Here are five facts about the region:

A POPULOUS AREA: Peel Region is made up of three municipalities: the cities of Brampton and Mississauga and the town of Caledon. The region says on its website that it serves more than 1.5 million residents and 200,000 businesses.

THE ORIGINS OF THE NAME: According to the Region of Peel Archives, the region was named after Sir Robert Peel, who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom twice in the 19th century.

LONG HISTORY: Peel County was created in 1852 as part of the United Counties of York, Peel and Ontario. It separated from the York and Ontario counties in the 1860s, but it took more than a century for the county to become what is now Peel Region. According to the archives, provincial legislation dissolved the old County of Peel and replaced it with the Region of Peel in 1974.

REGIONAL GOVERNANCE: When the Region of Peel was created as an upper-tier municipality, its new regional government was given more responsibilities. By 2015 that included water delivery, public health, waste management, paramedic services, long-term care facilities and policing. Peel is currently governed by a regional chair and 24 members of council, representing Mississauga, Brampton, and Caledon. The three lower-tier municipalities handle responsibilities such as public transit, libraries, property assessment and tax collection.

THE DISSOLUTION CONTROVERSY: The province tabled legislation in May to break up Peel Region as of Jan. 1, 2025, saying it wanted to give municipalities the tools needed to support future population and housing growth, reduce duplication, lower the cost of government and speed up the delivery of services. Premier Doug Ford had also said that Mississauga and Brampton were large enough to stand on their own, but separating the two cities' assets and finances was always going to be messy. The housing minister on Wednesday said there was evidence that full dissolution would have led to higher taxes and a disruption of critical services but did not provide numbers or further evidence on his claims.

Source - https://ca.news.yahoo.com/five-facts-peel-region-ontario-213422648.html

Regional government as part of the overall municipal governance model has always been a challenge for all levels of government. Shared services is a big area like water treatment, policing, roads, bridges, and overall urban planning.

It is much easier to roll up cities into regional government and then abolishing the local representation. https://www.thespec.com/news/looking-back-at-hamiltons-amalgamation-saga/article_99268edd-3a36-5e1a-93d6-e0a9a82b5dfa.html. Hamilton has been amalgamation for over 22 years. There are still challenges with amalgamation as smaller areas feel they get left out of discussions when it comes to public safety, infrastructure, and overall urban planning (residential, institutional, industrial, and commercial.

Mississauga was manage very effectively by Hazel McCallium for many years until her departure in 2014 - https://nationalpost.com/posted-toronto/mississauga-property-tax-the-provincial-governments-fault-hazel-mccallion. The problem is that Mississauga near the tail in of Mayor McCallium was seeing slower growth as Brampton started to expand rapidly. Shared resources like water treatment, policing, and other infrastructure was key to growth of both Mississauga and Brampton.

This is my blog on the current state of affairs with Caledon, Brampton, and Mississauga - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-dissolution-peel-region-challenge-paul-young-becrc/

Marit Stiles Bonnie Crombie, MBA, ICD.D have come out vocally on the cahnge in direction in terms of the splitting up of Peel - https://www.mississauga.com/news/council/mississauga-mayor-bonnie-crombie-angry-amid-reports-of-possible-peel-dissolution-reversal/article_ce2d1b0b-3ee0-5b05-a39e-2142499ec8ad.html or https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-government-transition-board-peel-dissolution-cost-tax-increases-1.7049940

Partisan politics should be put aside as any dissolution would be very messy in terms of asset ownership, debt allocation, and other shared services. The other option would be to dissolve the cities and move them all to the region of Peel like has been done in areas like City Of Hamilton . However, dissolving of City of Mississauga , City of Brampton , and Town of Caledon would also have it challenges as well.

The next forward for both Peel Region, Caledon, Mississauga, and Brampton should be on the following areas:

1. Making key investments in public safety including fire safety and paramedic
2. Closing the infrastructure gap as part of managing infrastructure gap
3. Developing the right generative AI strategy that will help automate parts of government and drive better results based on data.
4. Addressing issues with affordable housing will be challenge due to land supply.
5. Optimization of transit including how best for all transits as part of improving ridership
6. Continuing with austerity measures as part of managing the tax increases
7. Continuing with their ESG policies including metric reporting as part of getting to net zero.
8. Working economic development policies that will drive new business investment
9. Addressing issues with traffic flow through the leveraging data and AI
10. Building resiliency as part improving emergency, risk, and crisis management planning and reporting. More focus and investment should be on mitigation of risks related to cybersecurity, climate change, and other risks.

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Paul Young CPA CGA

[email protected]

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Paul Young is a former IBM Customer Success Manager that has deployed over 300 data and AI solutions across industries and geographies for the past 8 years. Paul is also Public Sector Policy and Reporting SME that drives better results through the leverage of data and AI.

#PublicSector #Infrastructure #publicsafety #transit #housing #ESG #scope1 #scope2 #scope3 #powergeneration #debt #surpluses #Deficits

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