“Together, let’s build Brampton’s future.”
The invitation came as City Councilor Gurpartap Singh Toor signed the preliminary letter. 1 minute video The City of Brampton has announced an open call for “local technology communities” to submit concepts on how artificial intelligence can be integrated into the city’s business.
The two-year “proof of concept” program asked technology companies to submit AI prototypes to be tested in various city departments. This is being touted as an opportunity to modernize the municipality’s service delivery, but aside from an extensive list of ideas outlined on the city’s webpage, it remains unclear how municipal officials intend to select these AI tools, what checks and balances will be put in place to oversee their implementation, and how much of a burden all of this may place on Brampton taxpayers.
City Councilor Gurpartap Singh Toor announced the start of submissions to the City of Brampton’s AI Proof of Concept Program. The city declined to say how many applications have been received or which ones are actively moving forward.
(City of Brampton)
This is typical of Mayor Patrick Brown’s administration, which has a long history. questionable sourcing, suppress public dialogue on important issuesmoving forward with haphazard projects without providing taxpayers with a clear plan, the city has provided limited information about the program and future procurements.
Mr. Brown has a long history of questionable promises and procurements in which friends and others with clear conflicts of interest have obtained lucrative work from City Hall under his direction.
His ‘world class’ promise cricket stadiuman LRT tunnel through downtown (no funding commitment yet), and independent university The City effort is just one part of Mr. Brown’s big promises that never materialized. University planning, human resources recruitment friendly honest committeework in secret passed it on to a friendand many other controversies were previously investigated by third-party investigators. Brown discontinued investigation in 2022.
For a wide range of tasks that can be performed by AI platforms, see City homepage This appears to be a casually deployed effort rather than a well-developed strategy backed by extensive reporting and analysis.
Many leading companies and public sector organizations have already deployed a variety of generative pattern recognition technologies and content scraping tools that perform analytical functions that replace those traditionally performed by humans. This has far-reaching implications for data privacy, employment and service delivery for Bramptonians.
In a one-minute video posted to the city’s Economic Development Board Facebook page, Councilor Toa explained that Brampton is looking for Canadian AI startups or “research institutes” to submit prototypes for review and testing by the city before deciding whether to move forward with full-scale implementation.
“We look for innovative solutions for the local government sector, whether it’s something as simple as identifying potholes or reviewing building permits to deliver much-needed housing in the city.”
According to a webpage dedicated to the program, the city is seeking proposals in a number of areas, including: Customer service and financial monitoring. Talent learning and development for municipal employees, including AI-powered training. It will use AI to review “relevant enforcement data, such as patrol logs, ticket records, and complaint trends,” and “generate personalized, resident-friendly closure messages” in response to ordinance complaints. and the creation of AI tools to screen, prioritize, and schedule hearings related to administrative fines.
Applications for the two-year program opened on October 23rd and closed shortly thereafter on November 13th.
The city did not respond to questions from The Pointer about how many submissions have been received, which subject areas they relate to, or which areas are being actively pursued.
The city has not said what burden these “solutions” will pose to taxpayers if the proof of concept is accepted and implemented long-term. It is not indicated whether any of these solutions may lead to job losses in the municipality. One of the solutions mentioned by the city was;
According to the city’s website, the “311 self-service AI customer service agents” will “transform the way Brampton residents access city services by providing instant and personalized responses to common inquiries and service requests.”
The lack of details about the city’s AI proof-of-concept program is another example of residents being starved for information about how their tax dollars are being spent under Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown.
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Submissions to the program closed nearly four months ago, but the public has not been provided with information on how submitted proposals are faring.
An intersessional report was sent to councilors on January 21, providing a “program update.” The information was not shared publicly. It is unclear why the issue was brought to a closed-door meeting away from public view.
A Freedom of Information request filed by The Pointer to obtain documents related to the program returned only two records totaling 19 pages. The first was a confidential report dated October 1, 2025 (5 pages), which was included in the agenda during the closed session on January 21 (14 pages). Both documents were withheld because they relate to in-camera issues, according to the city’s FOI office.
Section 6(1)(b) of the Local Government Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act allows local authorities to withhold records if they “reveal the substance of parliamentary deliberations” held behind closed doors.
Under the Local Government Act, local governments are permitted to close meetings to the public for limited reasons, such as security of local government property, acquisition or disposition of land, labor relations, matters regarding litigation and advice subject to attorney-client privilege, information provided in confidence by another level of government, trade secrets or other information provided in confidence by a business, discussions regarding ongoing negotiations and plans applicable to education or training sessions.
Trade secrets-related exemptions were used as a justification for the January 21 meeting, when the report was on the intersessional agenda.
Ontario’s ombudsman has long made clear that it is unacceptable for local governments to use trade secrets to justify blanket oversight of an entire issue. If part of the decision-making process involves discussion of trade secrets or confidential information that the third-party company does not wish to publicly disclose, only that part of the process or discussion will be handled behind closed doors. Everything else, including discussions about program budgeting, must be handled before the public.
The only information available about the progress of the program comes from a few short passages posted on the website.
“To ensure alignment with the City’s goals, proposals will be reviewed and selected for testing by the City’s Information Technology Department,” the website states. “Proof of concept will be initiated, evaluated and reported to council at key milestones.”
There is no indication whether these reports are processed in open sessions.
The city has not explained what level of access the companies had or will have to the treasure trove of taxpayer data stored at City Hall.
According to the project’s FAQ page, interested parties are encouraged to use “all available data.”
“City data will only be provided to vendors selected to proceed to the next stage,” the website explains. However, it also details that “if necessary, the city will assist in preparing datasets to support the creation of an AI proof of concept, while adhering to data privacy and cybersecurity policies.”
It is unclear whether this is for all interested companies or only those selected to advance to the next stage of the program.
Sir Mark Walport, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, has previously said that “public trust is an essential condition for artificial intelligence to be used productively”.
Those words were echoed by Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Cosseim in a speech at the 2024 Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Annual Conference, where she told the hundreds of local leaders in attendance that for municipalities, “maintaining public trust is paramount to successfully improving the delivery of programs and services through AI.”
Mayor Brown and Councilors Rod Power, Michael Paleschi, Najivit Kaur Brar, Harkirat Singh, Dennis Keenan, Rowena Santos, and Paul Biscenter all attended the meeting.
In his speech, Kosseim acknowledged that AI can have many benefits for municipalities, noting that the city of Bourne saved $400,000 by using AI to track weather conditions and optimize road salt use. The City of Toronto used AI tools to ease congestion through traffic cameras and traffic light changes, and the City of Calgary used AI to detect cracks and potholes to speed up repair times.
However, this optimism came with a caveat, as AI has a number of shortcomings that must be recognized and accounted for. Anyone who has experienced the glaring mistakes of Google’s AI or Chat GPT knows that these tools are far from perfect.
Kosseim emphasized that a big concern for local governments is that “AI could reproduce and amplify real-world bias and discrimination based on the historical datasets on which the algorithms were trained.” He pointed to an example in the US where a hospital deployed AI to predict who was likely to need extensive medical care. The algorithm was biased against white patients rather than black patients because the data set was based on historical spending, or who can pay for medical care. He also cited the example of Amazon, which used AI to speed up the hiring process.
“[It]turned out to be inherently biased against female candidates because it was trained on a decade’s worth of male-dominated resumes,” Kosseim explained.
In a city as diverse as Brampton, anti-black racism issuewhat kind of bias might these AI tools generate? Is this something the City of Brampton is also considering?
Again, city officials have not provided information explaining whether this is part of the research process.
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