Caledon councillors leave to kill Peel Region motion
Dramatic protest nixes vote on region’s attempt to control town’s planning authority
A dramatic power struggle more like a Roman Senate sacking than a typical Peel Region council meeting, played out Thursday as all five Caledon councillors walked out, rather than face a vote being pushed on them by their powerful neighbours to the south, Brampton and Mississauga.
“This could be the end of regional government as we know it,” declared Caledon Mayor Allan Thompson, before walking out with his towncouncil colleagues to avoid a vote that would have stripped Caledon of authority over its own planning.
The vote seemed stacked against Caledon, with its two bigger regional partners holding four times the number of seats.
But in a twist, the motion on the floor died. Canada’s third-largest municipal government lost quorum and no vote could be taken. By law, Region of Peel council meetings cannot take place unless at least one representative from each of its three municipalities is present. The region’s clerk said it is a very rare move but it has happened before.
At stake was the future of how growth would be managed in Caledon, geographically the largest municipality in the GTA — even bigger than Toronto — where hundreds of thousands of people will likely be settling as the current collection of rural hamlets is turned into a massive urban centre.
With Brampton and Mississauga taxpayers on the hook for the lion’s share of legal costs at the Ontario Municipal Board, where Caledon has faced a growing list of appeals over its controversial planning policies, some councillors feel it’s unfair for the rest of Peel to pay for Caledon’s questionable planning approach, which many say is out of line with provincial growth legislation.
The motion called for Ontario’s development facilitator to step in and for regional staff to take over consultation on how to fix Caledon’s ongoing planning problems.
“I think the motion here is a cry for help, it’s a suggestion that things aren’t working,” Mississauga Councillor George Carlson told his colleagues, adding that he was going to support the resolution. “There is no way that one of the three belongs in the club . . . It looks like Caledon doesn’t want to become a big urban city.” He referred to Caledon, with about 60,000 residents, resisting the type of growth that has made Mississauga and Brampton the sixthand ninth-largest cities in Canada.
Things reached a boiling point when Mississauga Councillor Carolyn Parrish suggested Thompson’s decisions about who will control Caledon’s planning have been motivated by personal interests. When Thompson said he had only supported an earlier vote last month on a similar motion because it called for Caledon council’s approval and he wanted to take the debate to them, Parrish asked, “Was that before or after you sold your land in Caledon?”
Thompson fired back: “You’re on public record.”
Parrish’s question stemmed from a Star report published Thursday. A Caledon citizens group has questioned council members, including Thompson, about a possible appearance of a conflict when dealing with development issues, because they or their families own large amounts of land. Property sale documents dated April 20 show Thompson sold property in southwest Caledon to developer Primont Homes Inc. for $9.4 million.
On Thursday, after more councillors questioned whether Caledon’s planning decisions were being made responsibly, Thompson again responded to Parrish. “Just so you know, Councillor Parrish, I’ll be dead before my land ever gets developed.”
The Star asked both Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie and Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey if, prior to the walkout by Caledon councillors, they were going to vote for the motion. Both said yes.