Following a decision by Brampton council to defer a vote on where a provincially funded LRT should go, residents and councillors are raising concerns about the politics being played while the city grows even more divided on the biggest transit decision in its history.

“I ask, was this a well orchestrated meeting, or not? Why does it remind me of a Queen’s Park, Liberal tactic,” Brampton resident George Startup, said to the Star, after Thursday’s council vote to avoid a decision on where an LRT should go. Instead, in front of a standing-room-only crowd of divided residents, council decided to delay the decision for six weeks, while a facilitator might be brought in to help find an LRT route everyone can agree on.

Mayor Linda Jeffrey, a former Liberal cabinet minister at Queen’s Park, supports the province’s proposed LRT route. In April it committed $1.6 billion to fund the core capital cost of the Hurontario-Main LRT. Jeffrey has since lobbied the public and council aggressively to back the province’s proposed route. She was asked Thursday about the politicking and concerns that the six-week delay might involve more divisive lobbying, instead of any constructive dialogue.

“Obviously, I want the best decision to come out of this. I want the best information. I want to prepare this council as well as possible,” Jeffrey said.

Council didn’t look anything like it had been prepared during the heated marathon meeting that started Wednesday in the early evening, but didn’t wrap up until about 1:30 am Thursday morning.

Council was split right down the middle, with Jeffrey and four others in support of the province’s proposed route, up the city’s Main St. and into the downtown core, and five councillors calling for an alternative route. Councillor Michael Palleschi, who forwarded the motion to defer, said he was undecided, but made it clear that he would not have supported a vote for the province’s route.

Jeffrey later stated that the previous council, which voted 10-1 against the province’s LRT route for Brampton, had been distracted by all the controversy surrounding former Mayor Susan Fennell, preventing a proper dialogue about the LRT issue.

The majority of delegates supported Jeffrey. Councillors and those in attendance told the Star it was clear she had stacked the room. “It was totally orchestrated,” said Councillor Elaine Moore. “This is worse than the complete lack of respect for true openness that we saw during the previous term of council. Some might call it good politicking. But is it honest and open for the mayor to use all of the resources of her office, a half-dozen staff, which we don’t have, to spin things. It’s like Fox News.”

Startup added, “It sure was somewhat obviously loaded with Linda supporters, LRT Tee Shirts, Union Members.”

Jeffrey stated after the meeting, regarding the lobbying concerns, “I want to be open and transparent about what we do. We’re a team, we have to do this together.”

After the meeting Councillor Jeff Bowman, who had forwarded a motion to take the province’s route off the table, was asked if he has faith in a six-week process to find a solution. “Depending on what the facilitator can do, I’m a firm believer, like you heard here from so many other councillors, we’re not getting our fair share,” he said. “I think it’s time that we went directly to the province, or have them come here, and said, ‘here’s what we want, here’s what Brampton wants, now how are we going to work together to fund this thing.”

Councillors and some delegates suggested during the meeting that Jeffrey is simply acquiescing to the Liberal government she used to be a part of, instead of demanding a “made in Brampton” LRT solution, not one that largely benefits Mississauga.

The five councillors who don’t support the province’s proposed route, said it was planned to benefit Mississauga, which would get 18 of the 26 stops and about 18 of the 23 kilometres of track. They also said much of the Brampton portion cannot support the LRT because of environmental and planning constraints that will see very little growth along much of the city’s proposed LRT corridor.

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Jeffrey was asked after the meeting about the claim that Brampton has been absent from the negotiating table with the province.

“The one opportunity that the former mayor had in an hour-long meeting with the premier of Ontario, when asked if she wanted to talk about transit, said ‘No’.” She added, “If you have an hour with the premier, you want to talk about transit. So I would agree with this council that they haven’t been represented by the (previous) mayor, but I believe there are many options to meet with local MPs, MPPs, and council, as you said, have been distracted. I’m not sure this was their priority during the last two years.”

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