Shining a spotlight

It’s a dubious honour, but Ontario Ombudsman Paul Dubé has chosen Brampton for his first “systematic” investigation of a municipality by the province. And it’s about time.

The city has spent years being “in the news for the wrong reasons,” as Mayor Linda Jeffrey puts it. And it has been waiting for such a probe since last year, when it asked the province for an investigation under the Public Inquiries Act. At that time it was told to wait until Dubé took on his new powers to investigate municipalities in January.

Now that he finally has those powers and 50 new employees on staff to help him dig through municipal documents, he plans to probe the city’s administration, focusing on procurements, land deals and real estate transactions. As Jeffrey said this week, “We may learn some things that we don’t want to hear.”

Whatever the result, Dubé has plenty to investigate. As the Star’s San Grewal reports, he can start by examining the following:

The 453 contracts an event company owned by a close friend of former mayor Susan Fennell received from the city and its agencies between 2001 and 2014, including 100 in which a competitive bidding process was not in place.

The 302 times that the city broke its own procurement rules between 2007 and 2014.

Unfortunately, Dubé will not be investigating a controversial $500-million downtown development deal that led to the request for an inquiry in the first place. That matter is before the courts.

Still, there are plenty of other questionable practices for the ombudsman’s office to look into. The citizens of Brampton deserve answers to their concerns, and quickly.

There are plenty of questionable practices in Brampton for the Ontario ombudsman to look into