Biography: Patrick Brown has been the mayor of Brampton since 2018. Prior to that, he led the Ontario Progressive Conservative party between 2015 and 2018. Brown resigned from that position when two women accused him of sexual misconduct, including making sexual advances toward a teenaged staffer after his friend provided her with free alcohol. Brown denied the charges. He subsequently sued CTV, the news outlet that reported the allegations, and the network later said some of its reporting was inaccurate, without specifying which pieces of information (one correction appears to be related to one of the accuser’s ages). Brown initially tried to reclaim his job in the leadership race triggered by his own resignation, but ultimately dropped out. He ran for leader of the federal Conservative party in 2022 but was disqualified when the party said he’d broken financing rules, a charge Brown denied.
As mayor, Brown has secured funding from Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario government to extend the Hazel McCallion light rail transit project to downtown Brampton, expand the city’s current urgent care centre, and build a new hospital. On a call with NEWSTALK 1010, Brown said that he had frozen municipal taxes for as long as he could, and only raised them by 1 percent this year to start construction on that second hospital. Brown also signed an agreement with a private on-demand transit service called Argo, which transit advocates have argued was a first step toward privatizing Brampton transit. Throughout the trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada, Brown has appeared on U.S. television to argue in favour of an integrated North American auto industry, and more recently for Lake Ontario to keep its name. He has pushed for automaker Stellantis to return to Brampton after the company idled a plant that employed 3,000 people.
After a staff report found the city had mismanaged $629,000 for the cancelled Brampton University project, Brown terminated an investigation into wrongful spending of public dollars. Much of the work that was paid for in that project was never completed, and a company led by one of Brown’s close friends received three times more money than had been approved by council.
Brown has spent dramatically more money on non-salary expenses for his office than previous mayors. In 2024, Brown’s office spent more than $461,000 on those expenses, compared to just over $26,000 under one former mayor. Independent news outlet The Pointer sent questions to Brown’s office about the expenses; the mayor’s office subsequently altered the records of its expenses to remove descriptions of some items, such as framed hockey jerseys that cost the public $3,600.
Platform: On his website, Brown focuses on the legacy of his tenure as mayor, touting $9.4 billion worth of investment in the city across different levels of government. He cites projects including health care centres, community spaces, transit expansion, and downtown Brampton revitalization. He has told news outlets that public safety will be at the top of his agenda and he will continue to fight crime, keep taxes low, create jobs and oversee the construction of Brampton’s second hospital if re-elected.