Ontario walks back plan to dissolve Peel Region, citing tax hikes, service disruptions

The province of Ontario will not move forward with plans to dissolve Peel Region.

In a release on Wednesday, Ontario Housing Minister Paul Calandra said legislation would be introduced in the new year to reverse the Hazel McCallion Act that was passed in the spring.

The act fulfilled a promise Premier Doug Ford made to the former longtime mayor of Mississauga that it would stand as an independent city.

Peel Region is made up of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon.

Despite Ford’s promise, Calandra said the government has since realized the move to dissolve the region was a mistake.

“The evidence we have seen is clear, full dissolution would disrupt critical services and lead to higher taxes for the people of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon,” Calandra said.

“And while some people might be OK with that, our government clearly is not.”

Calandra did not provide evidence or numbers to back up his claim. He said the dissolution would also slow down housing builds.

“Not only would this be very costly to devolve into the three component parts, not only would it cost local rate payers significantly, but equally important, it would cause a level of uncertainty that would stop us from getting the shovels in the ground,” he said.

Calandra said the new legislation would also recalibrate the mandate of the transition board to focus on options to enhance the self-determination of local governments to support building more homes faster and improve local service delivery.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown called the announcement “great news for taxpayers,” recently saying that dissolution would cost more than $1 billion and leave his city with no choice but to raise taxes.

“The Ford government has stopped a potential financial train wreck and diminished emergency services across the board. It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing,” he said in a post on X. “We have averted disaster!”

Outgoing Mississauga mayor and new Ontario Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie says she and the transition board were not given any advanced notice of the government’s flip-flop, adding she has not seen the reports the government used to make its decision

“This isn’t the end of our path to independence, it’s simply a bump in the road,” said Crombie. “Regardless, I will continue to maintain the position that as Ontario’s third largest city, Mississauga is more than ready to join the over 170 single-tier municipalities across the province in controlling our own destinies.”

Crombie added that Mississauga remains committed to working through the process of getting to the end result, which is dissolution.

“With this revised mandate, this marks a fresh start for the government. They need to step aside and let the transition board do their work and stop caving in to pressure and making rushed, uninformed decisions based on Mayor Brown’s scare tactics and fear-mongering. This is not how governments should be making decisions,” she said.

Instead of dissolution, Calandra promised the government would seek to make Peel Region more efficient and “responsive to the needs of taxpayers, including by improving regional services like policing, paramedics and public health.”

Ontario is also cancelling audits of six municipalities launched earlier this year to determine whether local governments are facing a revenue shortfall as a result of a provincial law that cuts some of the fees developers pay.

Municipalities use the money from those fees to fund housing-enabling infrastructure, and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario has said the provincial changes will leave those communities $5 billion short.

The former municipal affairs and housing minister had contended that municipalities were sitting on billions of dollars in reserve funds and launched those audits with a promise to make them “whole” if there was indeed a shortfall.

Calandra also said he is considering revoking or amending several Minister’s Zoning Orders, which override local bylaws, for lack of action or lack of water or wastewater servicing for sites.

Calandra has reversed several big government moves since he took over the housing portfolio in September after his predecessor resigned amid the Greenbelt scandal.

Removing land from the protected Greenbelt, a move that is being investigated by the RCMP, was reversed by the government earlier this year, as were forced urban boundary expansions.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the government should have crunched the numbers before it introduced legislation. Ford’s reversals have become a pattern, she said.

“Just like every other bill, they’re now going to have to introduce a bill to repeal said bill,” Stiles said.

“The province of Ontario is not a circus, right? We need, we deserve, good government. We deserve responsible government. We deserve government that actually has the best interest of Ontarians at heart and not silly games.”