Ontario abandoning plans to dissolve Peel Region

The province is scrapping its plans to dissolve Peel Region, with Premier Doug Ford's government backpedaling on the move less than a year after it was announced.

Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Paul Calandra made the announcement Wednesday, saying that the government will introduce new legislation in 2024 that would "recalibrate the mandate of the Peel Region Transition Board" to instead focus on improving regional services like policing, paramedics and public health, instead of splitting things up.

"While we originally thought that the best way to achieve our goals of better services and lower taxes was through dissolution, we've since heard loud and clear from municipal leaders and stakeholders that full dissolution would lead to significant tax hikes and disruption to critical services the people of Peel Region depend on," Calandra said in a statement.

Opposition NDP Leader Marit Stiles told reporters at a news conference after the announcement that Ford and Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, now the head of the provincial Liberals, were playing some sort of "bizarre political chess game" with the region.

"The people of Peel and their livelihoods are not a game," Stiles said, pointing to several other major policy reversals the province has made in recent months.

"We knew the Peel dissolution was a bad deal from the very beginning, it never should have been made in the first place. Just like with the Greenbelt and the municipal urban boundary expansions, Doug Ford and the Conservatives have wasted people's time, their energy and their tax dollars in pursuing terrible decisions."

Dissolution was to come in 2025

Ford announced in May that Peel Region would be dissolved in January 2025 through the Hazel McCallion Act, named after the former mayor who served Mississauga for 36 years. McCallion died in January at the age of 101.

"I promised Hazel many years ago ... that a city of almost 800,000 people should be independent," Ford said back in May.

Calandra said he is not worried about backing out on that promise, because while McCallion was a strong advocate for Mississauga, she also wanted to keep costs down for residents.

"She understood that you have to keep costs down, you have to encourage growth in a community," he said at a news conference.

The legislation would have let the province dissolve the region, turning the cities of Mississauga and Brampton and the Town of Caledon into independent municipalities.

Crombie was in favour of the move, while Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown vehemently opposed it, recently saying the dissolution would cost more than $1 billion and leave his city with no choice but to raise taxes.

Caledon Mayor Annette Groves also urged the province to rethink the split.

The Ontario government and the transition board it appointed were reportedly shocked by the cost of dissolution and the fact that it may cause massive tax increases in all three involved municipalities, a source with direct knowledge of the discussions previously told CBC News.

Calandra said the province heard from organizations like Peel police and paramedics, and discovered the dissolution would cost residents "significantly," on top of creating a level of uncertainty that would stymie building homes.

Changes to MZOs

Calandra also announced changes to Minister's zoning orders (MZOs), which are a powerful tool the province can use to expedite development on a specific parcel of land. With the stroke of a pen, an MZO overrides local planning rules, avoids public consultation, and changes what can, or can't, be built on a property.

In a news release, the province said several MZOs not related to housing are currently being reviewed for potential amendments or revocation, while others that are linked to housing are now under "enhanced monitoring" because of a lack of progress.

"I have always been clear that if we do not see the results we expect from a zoning order, our government will not hesitate to amend or revoke it," Calandra said in a statement.

"This approach sends a clear message that when our government issues a minister's zoning order to support priorities such as housing or long-term care, we expect to see results."

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.