Santos then voted herself to cancel an external forensic investigation into the entire deal, including her alleged conflict of interest involving the friend who received a lucrative payday from Brampton taxpayers. Santos later broke provincial freedom of information laws when she refused to hand over her communications regarding the failed university plan<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Rowena Santos has been Patrick Brown\u2019s loudest ally on council since they both took office in 2018. She has voted with him on every major issue the mayor has pushed, including the cancellation of forensic investigations into City Hall corruption that allegedly involved both of them. (The Pointer files)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Residents were then outraged when Santos threatened a beloved local charity<\/a> that provides critical support to those struggling with a range of issues. She led a council effort to threaten legal action which forced Regeneration Outreach to leave the area where it had operated for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pepe had seen enough, as reports kept coming out of Santos flying first class around the world on taxpayer-funded trips<\/a> that brought no benefit to the city, staying in five-star hotels and ignoring any accountability to the residents paying for her lavish travel<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe says she is working around the clock to unseat Santos.<\/p>\n She described her first run for Wards 1 & 5 in Brampton, when she won 14 per cent of the vote in 2022 and Santos only secured 36 percent of the votes, just 5,143 of all ballots cast, by far the worst performance of any incumbent. Santos was only supported by 9 percent of eligible voters in her wards, a signal that residents were tired of her and ready for change.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This time, Pepe says, she is running a much longer, more organized campaign that she frames as grassroots and idea-focused.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her campaign platform<\/a> is organized around four words: \u201cRe-think, Restore, Rebuild and Standards.\u201d They cover bike lane redesign, downtown accountability, repurposing vacant city-owned properties, and stronger by-law enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe identifies herself as a businessperson first, and a politician second.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a fan of saying that I\u2019m in the political world, but I\u2019m in the political world,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel better saying I\u2019m an entrepreneur and an innovator because that is where I\u2019m comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Tracy Pepe has been a longtime businessperson and successful entrepreneur, and now wants to bring that experience to City Hall. (Tracy Pepe\/Facebook)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, Pepe has a colourful history of entrepreneurship. She has spent three decades in the business of scent; her company, Smelling Pink, develops olfactory training programs used in long-term care homes to support residents with Alzheimer\u2019s, dementia and isolation. She has worked with more than 750 long-term care units across Ontario, B.C. and Alberta, and has also managed the aromatic fragrancing of numerous large corporate spaces around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe says she chose to launch her campaign event at an Indian restaurant on Main Street North because it represents her own political theory. Ward 1 has a large population of residents with European roots and Ward 5 includes a majority of Brampton community members with a South Asian background. The event was meant to showcase the need to build bridges between communities, and promote small businesses like the Taj Mahal Heritage restaurant run by TJay Singh.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow do we start bridging our community together?\u201d She says, \u201cThe best way I know how to do that is food. I have this idea that if it\u2019s my home, I would entertain a certain way.\u201d<\/p>\n Singh concurred. \u201cWe\u2019re connecting different communities now, which I\u2019m really glad that we\u2019re part of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As a business owner, Pepe is critical of the current situation for taxpayers in Brampton. She says residents can see and feel that their rapidly increasing taxes and other costs are not coming with any improvements around them, as infrastructure and services decline under the current council leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow that we have a cost of living crisis, people are paying all this money in their taxes and they don\u2019t feel they\u2019re being valued,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a business owner and you have a customer that doesn\u2019t feel valued, that is a huge problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Brampton\u2019s tax rate has increased in recent years, although Santos and Brown frequently provide misleading claims<\/a>, while refusing to open up the municipal books to independent auditors<\/a>. The 2025 increase for Brampton taxpayers overall was 8.4 percent not including an almost double digit increase for utilities under Brown and Santos. In 2026 it was almost 5 percent, or compounded, nearly 15 percent over two years, despite Brown\u2019s repeated claims of freezing budgets.<\/p>\n The city of Brampton initially cancelled, then reinstated a hospital-specific levy<\/a>. Santos and Brown initially resisted funding Peel Memorial\u2019s $125-million municipal share requirement to get the badly needed healthcare expansion the city needs.<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s 2026 budget quietly cut or delayed dozens of projects<\/a>, including for the so-called Innovation District that has failed to materialize, cricket field upgrades were cut nearly in half, and a fire communications facility was removed entirely. This was happening while funding for major projects were shifted onto debt after years of budget freezes left a reported $1.2 billion in deferred work with projects that were never started, even though the taxes to pay for them had been collected<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The jaw-dropping mismanagement inside Brampton City Hall would be front page news in any other municipality, Pepe says.<\/p>\n She is also critical of the non-existent construction of the Peel Memorial Phase-2 expansion, which has not moved forward for almost a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith one hospital and the amount of spending that this government [does], no wonder we don\u2019t have the second hospital,\u201d she says. \u201cNo wonder we don\u2019t have shovels in the ground. A lot of promises, a lot of photo ops, but I\u2019m about deliverables.\u201d<\/p>\n Her platform specifically commits to a full audit of Hospital levy funds that have already been collected from taxpayers and a public town hall to review the findings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Years after Peel Memorial\u2019s Phase-2 expansion was first promised, a construction firm has only been provisionally selected<\/a>, with the cost, opening date, and even details about the inclusion of an actual emergency department still unconfirmed.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Candidate for Wards 1 & 5 in Brampton, Tracy Pepe, has sharp criticism over the handling of Peel Memorial\u2019s Phase-2 expansion, which has languished for almost a decade. (The Pointer\/Alexis Wright)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe is also ready to get downtown Brampton back on track after years of failed leadership by Santos<\/a>, who helped cancel a massive redevelopment<\/a> of the city centre approved prior to her arrival on council. Santos then misled downtown business owners and residents<\/a> about plans to finally get the initiative off the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe would breathe life into Brampton\u2019s Business Improvement Area (BIA), which she says has been taken over by the politically motivated behaviour of Santos.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have one, which is ridiculous, because it\u2019s interconnected with our government,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s two board members that sit on the BIA that are city councillors. That\u2019s unheard of. Government should get out of the way of building businesses,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the way it works. Downtown cores are developed because of the businesses. Governments, get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n She mentions the badly mismanaged construction projects going on in the downtown area that are currently disrupting small businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe expressed frustration over the 2018 Downtown Reimagined Plan which collapsed shortly after Brown and Santos took office<\/a> and did not want to pay for it. Government inaction, politics and red tape, she says, has held Brampton businesses back.\u00a0<\/p>\n She saved her sharpest criticism for the Centre for Innovation and the so-called \u201cInnovation District\u201d Santos and Brown routinely claim has been created in the city centre.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that annoys me the most about the innovation district\u2014it is a joke,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is a waste of money. You do not label something an innovation district because you say it is. The people determine if it\u2019s an innovation district.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cinnovation district\u201d has been the subject of widespread mockery across Brampton, as Brown and Santos point to the boarded up and decaying building, claiming significant innovation investments have been made, throwing out names of grant recipients, \u201cincubators\u201d and start-ups without any visible signs of actual economic development.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a planned Rogers investment, expansion of Algoma University, a previous deal with Guelph University and Humber College, the once highly anticipated TMU campus and the so-called \u201cCentre for Innovation\u201d itself, have either failed to materialize, been cancelled due to council mismanagement or have floated away quietly into the ether.<\/p>\n Singh echoed Pepe\u2019s frustration over the centre for innovation, and the signs the City has put up with images of what it will look like: \u201cIt\u2019s just a picture there showing you that we have spent the (taxpayers\u2019) money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Tracy Pepe is critical of the construction in downtown Brampton. If elected, she wants to see clear timelines and accountability. (The Pointer\/Alexis Wright)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe says billboards around City Hall are unmatched by \u201caction, funding or any signs in budget documents of how the plan will be achieved.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n She is also blunt about the broader state of downtown Brampton. Small businesses, Pepe says, are not coming to downtown anytime soon, as buildings are shuttered, covered with plywood and in various states of decay. Her plan opens not with investment or branding, but with the city\u2019s unhoused population, which she argues has been ignored for too long.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no economic development or revitalization until we start to address this problem,\u201d she insists, describing a plan to create a dedicated social work staff complement to closely cooperate with the Region of Peel on existing supports, and to sit down directly with Brampton\u2019s MPs and MPPs to fast-track access to services.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot keep turning a blind eye to the homeless and the impoverished and the economic crises that are happening,\u201d she says, framing safety as a prerequisite for any economic revival. Residents won\u2019t return downtown, she argues, no matter what gets built, if all members of the community are not respected and properly cared for.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Her second priority is untangling the construction chaos that drove her out of her own downtown storefront. She wants a task force to establish clear timelines and costs on every project currently underway downtown, arguing the City owes small business owners real answers, rather than uncertainty.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot establish a business under that kind of economic uncertainty,\u201d she says, describing shop owners who don\u2019t know from day-to-day whether their curb will be finished, their signage approved, or their street even open.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Pointer reported on one such business whose owner Tarun Devgan reported an 80 percent revenue drop<\/a> due to construction, with what he described as little communication or support from the City or Region. As of the summer of 2023, a total of 19 downtown businesses had left or shut down since construction began shortly before that, while only $300,000 was allocated citywide under the Business Improvement and Facade Improvement grants.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe also wants Ken Whillans Square redesigned to meet accessibility requirements without relocating the cenotaph, calling the current plan to move the war memorial \u201cridiculous.\u201d She called for a full audit of the Innovation District, saying eight years and no results, as Brown and Santos continue to sell a fantasy about the project, is enough. \u201cIf the project needs to be stopped, it needs to be stopped,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another priority is restructuring Brampton\u2019s Business Improvement Association (BIA) model. The City currently funds a single downtown BIA, while she says areas like Kennedy Road have more businesses than downtown and receive a fraction of the support. This is unacceptable, Pepe says, compared to the multiple BIAs in cities like Toronto and Mississauga.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Longtime Brampton advocate and businessperson Tracy Pepe wants to represent Wards 1 & 5 in Brampton, and promises to attract actual investments to improve her community. (Tracy Pepe\/Facebook)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pepe cautions that downtown Brampton won\u2019t be revitalized in a single term without first resolving what she calls \u201cmajor problems\u201d like homelessness, construction paralysis and the lack of accountability.\u00a0<\/p>\n She also spoke on the current state of the Stellantis auto manufacturing plant in Brampton, comparing it to the City of Detroit\u2019s 2013 municipal bankruptcy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about the similarities of our city to Detroit,\u201d she says. \u201cHow Detroit had to go bankrupt before there was an emerging. I feel that we\u2019re at that stage now.\u201d<\/p>\n She says Rowena Santos has done hardly anything since becoming a councillor, other than travelling the world and promoting herself on social media, and her record proves it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEight years in our ward, nothing has been built\u2026there are absolutely zero deliverables.\u201d<\/p>\n Santos, Brown and fellow incumbent Paul Vicente delayed downtown infrastructure work<\/a> despite business owners\u2019 pleas, Pepe says, throwing a project delayed for decades\u00a0 into fresh turmoil when they were first elected.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Pepe\u2019s message is simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re not investing in people, we\u2019re going to have huge problems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Email: [email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\n At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories\u00a0to ensure every resident of Brampton, Mississauga and Niagara has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial\u00a0HERE<\/a>. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe first time I ran, I was angry,\u201d Tracy Pepe says, during her campaign launch event at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194339],"tags":[51759,49,48],"class_list":["post-934727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brampton","tag-brampton","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ad11d73b462f.jpg\")
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