Welcome to another exciting edition of #munipoli Matters, where we discuss all about local elections and local government in Canada and beyond. We have another one of my sidebars again this week, this time focusing on the City of Brampton.
Specifically, the current mayor of Canada's "ninth largest city”: Mayor Patrick Brown. In his four years as mayor, whether you agree with him or not, Brown has certainly managed to keep people talking about him and his city.
Brown’s latest project is calling on municipal governments across Canada to contribute financially to a lawsuit fighting Bill 21, a provincial law adopted in Quebec in June 2019 and prohibits public sector workers in the province from wearing religious symbols during the course of their employment.
Critics say the law unfairly discriminates against workers of a predominently Muslim and South Asian background from professions such as teachers. This became overtly evident after a teacher in Chelsea, QC lost her job because she wore a hijab.
“Bill 21 is discrimination. It’s an attack on religious freedom in Canada,” Brown said in an interview to this local online publication, adding that the campaign he proposed was to try to “level the playing field” and gather enough resources to take the case to the Supreme Court.
That lawsuit against Bill 21 is being led by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the World Sikh Organization of Canada. Brampton council voted to contribute $100,000 to the suit, and this has been followed by Toronto ($100,000), Calgary ($100,000) and Victoria, BC ($9,500). Other municipalities such as Durham Region and Winnipeg, Manitoba are debating similar actions.
Not all cities are responding to Brown’s call to action. Mississauga, just south of Brampton, declined to put aside taxpayers money to fight the lawsuit. “I personally condemn Bill 21. It’s discriminatory, infringing on the civil and human rights of individuals in Quebec. I think we all agree it’s reprehensible. But my personal view is that we shouldn’t use property tax dollars to fight against another level of government in another province,” Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie told councillors.
While fighting for “the Canadian way”, as Brown puts it, is commendable and the right thing to do, I can’t help but wonder if all this sudden action is really just a shiny object that the Brampton mayor has dangled in front of the media and political observers to distract them from the ongoing issues pertaining to Brampton?
I have no qualms admitting props to Patrick Brown staging a political comeback in 2018, going from resigning as the Ontario PC party leader (because of sexual harassment allegations which seemed to me dubious to begin with) to rebounding and getting elected mayor by defeating the incumbent at the time.
You would think that someone with federal and provincial experience would be a godsend to getting municipal issues on the frontburner. But it seems in the last four years, Brampton has been “plagued” by grandiose announcements of major projects, only for the reality to be completely disconnected from what was announced.
Here’s a brief sampling of what has been written about Brampton that may have flown under the radar during the last several weeks Brown has been egging on a lawsuit against Bill 21.
Despite the promises made by Brown to get Brampton "back on track", those projects have either stalled or had never gotten started at all. Two major initiatives Brown introduced, Brampton’s “very own” university, and a cricket stadium, were announced by the mayor but without any concrete plan on how to pay for it.
On top of that, Brown has been touting several years of tax freezes for Brampton’s city budget, despite there being a Region of Peel portion that is NOT as frozen, while the infrastructure projects, either those he championed or existing, go unfunded or underfunded.
Let’s not forget that an announcement that was made with much fanfare, the much sought after second hospital for Brampton, turns out to be just a “new in patient” wing at the existing Peel Memorial Hospital and unclear if expected hospital services will be provided. While health care policy is the purview of the provincial government, the mayor is complicit in going along with the Tories’ narrative that this is a new hospital…when it clearly isn’t.
Oh, and did I mention the continuing controversies surrounding David Barrick, Brampton’s Chief Administrative Officer with past political ties to Brown? Barrick has been cited several times for circumventing city procedure and overstepping his authority, not to mention criticism that he simply doesn’t have the experience to run a big city like Brampton…yet Brown got him hired anyway.
The term Potemkin village refers to fake villages used to impress Empress Catherine the Great of Russia as she travelled her realm to see ‘progress’ being made, only for the structures to be taken down once she was gone and moved to be reassembled along the next stop on the Empress’ route.
I can’t help but think as Patrick Brown goes full throttle on his crusade fighting Bill 21, that it’s really a smokescreen to accentuate his strengths in being an effective campaigner.
Meanwhile, our attention is diverted away from the serious plights and issues that Brampton needs to deal with as a growing city.
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