Brampton Mayor Brown ‘optimistic’ protesting city councillors united behind new CAO

After a divisive week at Brampton City Hall, Mayor Patrick Brown says council is united behind the city’s new interim Chief Administrative Officer Paul Morrision.

In a closed door meeting last Friday (Feb. 11), embattled Brampton CAO David Barrick was replaced by Morrision, who is also director of bylaw services with the city and a former Hamilton police superintendent.

The move came after six city councillors boycotted a regularly scheduled meeting of council in protest of what they called the city’s “authoritarian dictatorship.”

After the fallout of Wednesday’s cancellation, two special meetings were scheduled for Friday – one by Mayor Patrick Brown and another called by the bloc of six councillors.

Brown’s meeting could not proceed as the six councillors again did not show up, while the second Friday meeting went ahead as scheduled. By the time that meeting was wrapped, Barrick was out as CAO and council had unanimously voted to appoint Morrison.

Despite the divisions last week, Mayor Brown said council is now united after selecting a CAO that the 11 members “truly believe in.”

“I think it’s important to have a unifying CAO, and we have that with Paul Morrison,” Brown said at a press conference on Wednesday. “He’s someone that we believe in with very impressive credentials.”

RELATED: Six Brampton Councillors skip meeting in protest saying city democracy ‘under siege’

According to reports, former CAO Barrick was hired back in October 2019 and drew criticism after a city director said she was fired, accusing Barrick and others of misconduct.

Members of council later requested that Peel Regional Police and the Ontario Ombudsman investigate the allegations, with police reporting no evidence of criminal wrongdoing while the ombudsman declined to investigate.

In a letter explaining their absence from last week’s council meeting, the bloc of six alleged “Brampton’s democracy is under siege,” that taxpayers were being “abused” and that senior staff and members of council had “taken a blowtorch to the rules that are supposed to govern our city.”

The protesting councillors were Martin Medeiros, Jeff Bowman, Charmaine Williams, Pat Fortini, Doug Whillans and Gurpreet Dhillon.

When asked if Bramptonians should be worried about the implications of the letter, Brown said “the beautiful thing about democracy is debates.”

“You have passionate debates, and that happens here at city hall,” Brown said. “But at the end of the day when you have those vigorous debates it’s important to come together and I just want to give credit to our city council.”

With Morrision as CAO, Brown said he is “optimistic about the days ahead.”

Coun. Martin Medeiros echoed those comments, adding that the protesting councillors “wanted to move the city forward and do what’s right for the city.”

“I have my personal views, I won’t speak for each councillor but I do know that everyone came to the table and recognized that the mayor provided leadership in bringing everyone together and moving us forward to where we are today,” Medeiros said.

In an earlier interview with insauga.com publisher Khaled Iwamura, Medeiros said the protest was a drastic measure due to the boycotting councillors’ belief that “the will of council wasn’t respected.”

Another special meeting of council is scheduled for Feb. 22, but Brown said that meeting may be scrapped as a result of Friday’s closed door session.

Brampton City Council’s next regular meeting of council is scheduled for March 2.