It hardly needs William Shakespeare to know how foolish we can be. All you have to do is follow the bouncing ball from Queen’s Park in Toronto. If you ever believe you can trust anything you hear from Ontario premier Doug Ford, you are just another damn fool. I still cannot understand why anyone would believe anything that would come out of his mouth.
And to add insult, he has used the name of the late mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, on the provincial bill that will separate Brampton and Caledon from the City of Mississauga. Sure, Hazel was always eager to see Mississauga out of the trap of supporting Brampton and Caledon but who are these conservatives on the ‘transition board’ the premier is going to appoint to do the separation surgery? They have less than two years to get the job done.
The only possible way to save a nickel on this Peel-less arrangement is to merge Brampton into Mississauga. That would leave Caledon out in the cold but it would be the least serious financial problem for the province. With luck and good management at the helm in the new enlarged City of Mississauga, there would be some major cost savings. And this would be substantially more than the Brampton Mayor’s salary.
Mississauga would not have to recompense Brampton for water services. The Peel regional police headquarters is already in Mississauga and it can probably serve the enlarged city quite satisfactorily. The loudest arguments you would hear would be from old timers in Brampton who will not like the name change. You would have to explain to them patiently that the Mississauga aboriginal tribes predated the Flower City of Brampton by many centuries.
And let’s face it, there is the tradition of merging in the area. While Hazel McCallion fought hard against her Town of Streetsville being merged into Mississauga in 1974, she accepted the situation and ran to represent her town on the new council. She soon proved to both council and the voters in Mississauga that she could run their city.
This might not be the case with Brampton’s mayor Patrick Brown.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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