Let’s get ball rolling on Peel split to help those who’ll lose jobs, Mississauga councillor urges

Mississauga is preparing to give the provincial government an official “push” to get things moving quickly in the process that will allow for the political separation and subsequent independence of Peel’s three municipalities.

City of Mississauga councillors will discuss a notion of motion at tomorrow’s (May 31) council meeting. The motion, introduced by Ward 5 Councillor Carolyn Parrish, essentially pushes Queen’s Park to begin the necessary transition work “with all urgency,” largely to let the more than 5,000 Region of Peel employees whose jobs are up in the air know sooner rather than later what the future holds for them.

Noting in her motion that some 5,063 full-time staff, excluding Peel Regional Police, will be affected by the dissolution of Region of Peel government as of Jan. 1, 2025, and that “the unknown is incredibly stressful for current staff employed by the Region of Peel as well as their families,” Parrish asks via her motion that the mandated transition board be set up by the province as soon as possible and that it “makes obvious decisions quickly” to ease concerns for Region of Peel staffers.

The motion also seeks to have the transition board make it a priority to help Region of Peel employees with future employment in roles that will become necessary as Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon sever ties and proceed as independent municipalities.

Word came from the provincial government on May 18 that it will dissolve the Region of Peel, as has been Mississauga’s wish for decades.

The Ontario government’s Hazel McCallion Act, if approved, will see Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon split and officially become independent municipalities as of Jan. 1, 2025.

Shortly after a May 18 news conference at Mississauga City Hall, Mississauga’s third-term mayor, Bonnie Crombie, who took the reins from the iconic Hazel McCallion in 2014, sat down for an Instagram interview with insauga.com publisher Khaled Iwamura.

“I am so ecstatic. We raised  a toast…with all the councillors just now,” said Crombie, whose City councillors stood tall behind her just moments earlier as she explained, again, why independence from the Region of Peel is the best possible move for Mississauga and its 720,000 residents.

Crombie and her councillors, and McCallion and her City council members of the day, have for nearly three decades voiced their consistent argument that if Mississauga was to prosper to the full extent, it would have to at some point sever ties with the Region of Peel municipal government.

“This is a big win,” Crombie told insauga.com. “I fought three campaigns on this, but this (last) one in particular…last October, it was really part of my platform. We branded it ‘Mexit’.”

As McCallion’s handpicked successor, Crombie immediately and enthusiastically took the Mississauga independence torch in 2014, vowing on many occasions to “finish the job that Hazel started.”

Canada’s seventh-largest city, and Ontario’s third-largest, simply had to get out of a relationship with the Region of Peel that had long ago stopped working for Mississauga, the argument for divorce went.