Dubai, Dublin and Pakistan: Ontario city under fire over foreign trips for council

Over the course of 2023, elected officials from an Ontario city visited countries across three continents in search of economic investment to bring back to the Greater Toronto Area, going on more trips than some of their colleagues in larger cities.

Throughout last year, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and his councillors went to Karachi, Dubai, Dublin, Anaheim, Lisbon and Detroit. The trips included visits to local startups, attending conferences and meeting diplomatic officials.

The number of overseas missions undertaken by Brampton councillors is significantly higher than both Mississauga and Ottawa, two larger cities, and has raised criticism from some.

“I fail to understand why so many councillors are going on these taxpayer-paid trips,” former Brampton councillor Elaine Moore said in a recent interview.

Documents obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws show the first trip of the year, led by Mayor Brown and a councillor to Pakistan, resulted in an invoice for $92,570.48.

A trip to Dublin led to costs of more than $60,000, while the budgets and costs of the other trips have not been proactively made public by the city.

At the beginning of May last year, Mayor Patrick Brown, one of his staff members, a councillor and a member of the city’s economic development team set off to Pakistan, accompanied by someone from the city’s startup incubator.

Documents obtained by Global News show they flew to Pakistan with a brief layover in Dubai, jetting off in the first few days of the month.

Once they landed in Pakistan, the group visited Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, stopping at start-up projects and incubators in a trip the mayor’s office said was focused on the innovation and technology sector.

Itineraries from the trip reveal a whirlwind of meetings and travel between different cities, with appointments including attending a cricket match, events with technology stakeholders and meetups with universities.

Other parts of the trip are less clear, with the mayor taking part in several unspecified events marked on itineraries as private.

One event in Lahore, for example, on the mayor’s schedule was called “private meeting” and the purpose was listed as “private (AUH).” The event took place in a board room that, according to the documents, needed to fit 12 to 15 people.

Asked about the meetings, Brown’s spokesperson provided no details to Global News.

“The itinerary for the Mayor’s visit to Pakistan, including the ‘private meetings,’ was shared with the relevant stakeholders,” his office said.

The planning and organization of the trip was handled by a travel agency given a sole-sourced contract by the City of Brampton to book travel, accommodation, security and look for potential leads in the market, the documents show.

A City of Brampton spokesperson told Global News the trip to Pakistan required “very specific knowledge” of the local market and security, leading them to land on the travel agent that received the contract.

At the end of the trip, the city said it paid $45,200 for “lead generation and consulting services” for the Pakistan trip, along with $37,713.23 for travel expenses. The total tab, according to the city, came to $92,570.48.

Brown’s office said the trip was a success which generated investment leads, promoted the city’s startup plans to hundreds, led to an MOU with a group in Karachi to “foster investment and potential start-up exchange programs” and boosted potential future cricket investment and events in Canada.

“These efforts help create jobs and attract investment to Brampton,” Brown’s office said.

The Pakistan trip was far from the only foreign direct investment mission undertaken by Mayor Brown and his council.

A report written by city staff earlier this year said in May of 2023 elected officials went to both Pakistan and Dublin. On the latter trip, Global News has previously reported the delegation spent more than $60,000.

Around the same time, another councillor flew to Dubai to attend a developer day and meeting with a company that had previously partnered with Algoma University, which has a campus in Brampton.

The same councillor flew to Dubai again during the winter to represent Brampton at the COP28 climate conference and, according to the city staff report, visited Detroit in October for an urban transformation summit.

Also in October, the city’s deputy mayor led a trip to Anaheim, Calif., for three days to attend a medical conference “to set the stage for Brampton when the 2024 AdvaMed MedTech Conference is hosted in Toronto.”

Another councillor flew to Lisbon in November for five days “primarily to participate in the Web Summit Technology Conference.”

In its report earlier this year, the City of Brampton said that the intense focus on foreign missions had “successfully raised” its profile as a destination to invest.

“The City has established a unique value proposition as a talented, diverse, and well connected City with global investors,” staff wrote.

“National and internationally minded companies competing at a global scale recognize the value of Brampton’s workforce. As the fastest growing big City in Canada, Brampton has much to offer.”

Critics are less convinced.

Jay Goldberg, the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said that overseas investment trips should be taken by provincial officials and representatives, not those at the local level.

“I think they could be working with the province and the Ministry of Economic Development,” he told Global News, adding he thought Mayor Brown should “start justifying” international travel.

“These trips have been going on for a while, he’s been mayor for a while, these councillors have been around for a while. Where are the results? And, quite frankly, even if you’re trying to say that these trips are producing a lot for the people of that city… these expenses should be fully transparent, it should be posted online.”

The number of trips undertaken by Brampton elected officials last year is higher than either Ottawa or Mississauga, both of which boast larger populations.

A spokesperson for the City of Mississauga told Global News that, through 2023, only the mayor attended any foreign trips. The first, they said, was in Boston and the second was an aerospace-focused mission to Paris, with a stop in Poland before returning to Canada.

A list of trips taken by Ottawa’s mayor and councillors during the same time prepared by staff in that city for Global News had Chicago as the only foreign destination. Ontario’s capital, Toronto, recorded a significant number of overseas trips, with councillors visiting England, Taiwan, Italy and the United States.

Former councillor Moore, who has been vocal in her criticism of Brown in recent years, said the city should be spending money supporting local startups instead of going “across the globe” in an attempt to attract them.

“I don’t understand why we need to go to Pakistan, anybody needs to go to Pakistan, to attract entrepreneurs and startup business,” she told Global News.

“There are certainly a lot of entrepreneurs in Brampton, there is a need in Brampton to support those new businesses and entrepreneurship, so I think you can just look in your own backyard and cultivate the kind of support that you need for local business and local startups.”