Brampton shuffles $1 million in city budget to prepare for Peel split with Mississauga

The city is moving money around to prepare for Brampton’s split from Mississauga, Caledon and the Region of Peel and ease the transition into a stand-alone municipality.

Questions around shared services and the future of regional workers have swirled since the province officially announced plans earlier this year to dissolve the Region of Peel and separate Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon into single-tier municipalities.

Brampton has named city staffer Christopher Ethier as its new director of municipal transition and integration to help ease the transition process, and Brampton City Council on Wednesday approved a $1 million budget shuffle to fund work required during the dissolution process.

A report to council on Wednesday (Nov. 1) says the funds will come from Brampton’s General Rate Stabilization Reserve and support the city’s dozen specialized working groups and transition team, which will work with the provincially-appointed Transition Board.

Services that will be reviewed by the city’s transition team and the provincial board include transportation, water and wastewater, housing, policing, health and many more.

The split is expected to take effect in January 2025 but has led to questions about what will happen to shared Regional services like water treatment, waste disposal and policing, and squabbles between Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and Mississauga’s Bonnie Crombie.

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Questions have also been raised about the future for Region of Peel workers, and just last week more than 80 non-profits voiced concerns about how dissolution will impact vulnerable residents relying on public services that are currently funded or supported by the Region.

Mississauga is also moving ahead with its transition preparations as city officials recently announcing that more health and human services staff have been brought on board in order to prepare for the split, while the Town of Caledon is slashing its number of departments by more than half in a “restructuring” that will free up more than $1 million in the budget every year ahead of the Peel region split.