Mississauga is on one side, Brampton and Caledon are on the other.

At a special meeting on May 21, Brampton council voted unanimously in favour of the city officially supporting the two-tier municipal government model currently in place in the Region of Peel.

Mississauga council made its desire to be independent of the region clear to the province in March, while Caledon council cast its support behind the keeping the region at the end of April.

Brampton council left making its position official until the 11th hour, with the province’s public consultation deadline expiring at 11:59 p.m. the night of the special meeting.

“Whether it’s the Deloitte Report, the Ernst & Young report, whether it’s engaging research over the opinions of our community or whether it’s getting a legal opinion, what we’ve done as a city is to make sure we didn’t make a decision first and then afterwards do the research,” Mayor Patrick Brown told council.

“And that’s why we’re making this decision on the last day available to provide input to the province,” he added.

Council received a presentation from Joseph Angolano, Vice President of Main Street Research, which the city commissioned to do a survey of Brampton residents’ views on the issue.

City staff believes the review could wrap up as early as August ahead of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) general meeting that month.

Main Street conducted two surveys, including 1,500 residents in both Brampton and across Peel Region. One focused on Brampton only, while the other focused on the region as a whole.

In addition to finding that only half of respondents across the region even knew about the province's review, the survey found 66.4 per cent of Bramptonians favoured keeping the regional structure as is, while 25.4 per cent would prefer to see governance in all three communities amalgamated at the regional level. Only 8.2 per cent of respondents favoured de-amalgamation of the region.