MANMEET“MANNY”SINGH
CHOUDHARY

Three Peel officers were suspended and referred to the provincial police watchdog over the "Project South" corruption probe that also implicated Toronto officers. Separately, four Peel employees have alleged a promotions scandal, after a leaked internal memo allegedly told decision-makers that "work experience must not factor" into leadership picks. Toronto Police handed down a two-year demotion for comparable misconduct in 2024 — Peel's disciplinary outcomes remain unclear. Meanwhile, Chief Nishan Duraiappah's compensation hit $611,678 in 2025 — up 26% in a single year and more than double his 2020 starting pay — making him the highest-paid police chief in Canada, ahead of Toronto's chief despite leading a force with about half as many officers. Peel residents already pay more for it: the region's $837.3-million 2026 police budget works out to roughly $523 per resident, versus about $437 per resident for Toronto's $1.43-billion budget.

Brampton is Ontario's third-largest city at roughly 791,000 people, and it has exactly one full-service hospital — Brampton Civic. Peel Memorial remains urgent-care only. Brampton-Caledon has about 0.73 hospital beds per 1,000 residents, roughly a third of the provincial average of 2.23. The average ER wait for an inpatient bed has reached 19 hours, with about three-quarters of patients missing the province's own target. Peel Memorial's Phase 2 expansion has been promised for years; a construction firm was finally selected in late 2025, but cost and timeline are still unclear.

Peel Region needs close to 12,000 additional licensed child care spaces by the end of 2026 to hit its own $10-a-day targets, and has to hire well over 1,600 more early-years staff to run them. A 2023 regional estimate put the true shortfall above 14,000 spaces. Peel has also turned away thousands of potential spots from for-profit operators to protect its non-profit-first rule, even as wait lists grow and unsubsidized care runs families roughly $1,000 a month.

Two snowfalls in late December 2025 alone generated hundreds of 311 complaints, and a January 2026 petition against plow windrows blocking driveways drew more than 9,400 signatures. The city's answer so far has been higher fines — blocking a plow now costs $250 for a first offence, up from $125, rising to $750 — without changing how plowing or overnight parking bans actually work on the ground.

Brampton grew 15% in four years to become Ontario's third-largest city, but the 2026 city budget held the tax rate flat while layering on an ongoing 1% hospital levy — leaving recreation and library funding to compete for whatever room is left. Wards 3 & 4 families are seeing user fees climb at community athletic facilities, while library expansion — like the branch folded into the new Howden Recreation Centre — gets funded only when it can hitch a ride on a bigger capital project.

Neither City Hall nor Peel Region publishes one clean "since 2016" number — which is itself part of the problem. City Council froze its own portion of the tax bill for three straight years (2019–2021) under Mayor Patrick Brown, then had to make up ground fast. The city resumed increases in 2022 with a 1% hospital levy, and by 2023 the combined city-plus-region bill jumped 5.9% — an extra $321 for the average home. City taxes rose again in 2024 (about 1.9%), and in 2025 the city's own $194 increase stacked on top of $300-plus more from Peel Region, roughly $500 in one year alone. For 2026, Peel Region approved a further 3.36% blended increase. Meanwhile, Brampton's unpaid property tax accounts hit $151.2 million in 2024, up $40.5 million in a single year, and properties referred to a bailiff for collection jumped 400% (234 to 1,170) over that same year.