Brampton councillor pleads with province to withhold ‘strong mayor’ powers from Patrick Brown

A Brampton City Councillor is urging the province not to extend “strong mayor” powers to Brampton’s Mayor Patrick Brown out of a concern it will lead to Brown “abusing his powers in an expanded way.”

Brampton City Councillor Jeff Bowman made the plea during a press conference at Queen’s Park on Thursday, calling on Premier Doug Ford to bar Brown from any future extension of so-called “strong mayor” powers.

“Patrick Brown in Brampton is the poster child for not delegating these powers to a Mayor,” Bowman said on Thursday. “I urge the Premier and Minister (of Municipal Affairs and Housing) to carve out an exemption in any upcoming legislation that blocks these powers being utilized by Mr. Brown.”

The new legislation passed earlier this month gives the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the authority to veto bylaws that conflict with provincial priorities, such as building housing.

And while the province is still exploring whether to extend those powers to mayors of other large Ontario municipalities like Brampton and Mississauga, Bowman says Brown should not be allowed to make any unilateral decisions in council chambers.

Bowman, who is not seeking re-election, also asked the Ontario Ombudsman to finish investigations into a handful of the city’s request for proposal (RFP) contracts, which were spun down after Brown moved to cancel a forensic audit of more than $600,000 paid to consultants for the Brampton University project and investigations into city-awarded contracts.

Brampton taxpayers have now spent more than $150,000 on the investigations and audits which will likely never be completed.

RELATED: Mayor Brown axes Brampton council meetings, blocking inquiry into cancelled investigations

Brampton City Council has been marked by infighting in recent months.

The mayor and a handful of councillors have either cancelled or not shown up to select meetings, including a session that would have seen colleagues question why Brown moved to cancel the investigations before they were.

Brown moved to quash both the audit and the investigations back in August despite questions around the mayor’s personal connections to consultants, how city contracts were awarded, and a possible conflict of interest between Coun. Rowena Santos and David Wheeler – a former professor of Santos’ and consultant on  the shuttered BramptonU project.

In an interview with inSauga, Santos confirmed she had previously reached out to the city’s integrity commissioner as early as August 2019, but a report to council found Wheeler charged the city more than $4,200 in airfare and AirBnB expenses months before securing a request for proposal (RFP) with the city.

The commissioner found there was no conflict at that time, but has yet to rule on a council motion requesting the IC to look into the matter further.

The report found Wheeler’s “Brampton Expenses” totaled $10,144.88, which included “two expenses that do not line up with the timing of the RFP.”

Brampton’s council has split into two factions – on one side is Brown and supporters Councillors Rowena Santos, Paul Vicente, Harkirat Singh and Michael Pallesci, while the other is made up of Bowman and Councillors Martin Mederios, Pat Fortini, Gurpreet Dhillon and Doug Whillans.

At least 10 consecutive special and regular meetings were called off in the last few months due to absent and protesting councillors, with Brown’s camp boycotting meetings over an illegal motion that Bowman’s side supported.

The fallout left the city with a $20,000 bill for legal fees, which Brown has said should be paid by Bowman and the other councillors who supported the motion.

Both sides of council have boycotted meetings and held press conferences targeting the other, oftentimes engaging in personal attacks and “whataboutism” – an often-used political technique of responding to an accusation by raising an unrelated issue or making a counter accusation.

In a response to Bowman’s press conference on Thursday, Brown declined to comment on the “strong mayor” issue or Bowman’s request for the Ombudsman to take over the scrapped RFP investigations, but he did address the BramptonU audit, calling it a “witch hunt on Councillor Santos.”

“Councillor Bowman created his own investigation of three Councillors into the City’s post secondary education efforts. It was widely inappropriate to have an investigation lead (sic) by Councillors,” Brown said in a statement, likely referring to the BramptonU audit steering committee, which set the scope of the audit. “He should have accepted the integrity commissioner ruling that there was no conflict.”

Under the so-called “strong mayor” rules, a council could override the mayor’s veto with a two-thirds majority vote. Premier Doug Ford has said he is planning to expand the powers to more municipalities, but has not released a timeline of when that may happen.

All current members of council except Bowman and Doug Whillans are running for re-election in the municipal election next month.

“I’m not running for re-election. I am making this ask as a resident of Brampton,” Bowman said. “Patrick Brown has denied the residents of Brampton the truth about what really happened with these RFPs.”

Brampton voters will go to the polls to choose the next term of council on Oct. 24.