A years-long controversy surrounding former Brampton councillor Gurpreet Dhillon has resurfaced dramatically after Brampton council decided not to remove a high-profile integrity commissioner’s report tied to sexual misconduct allegations dating back to 2019, setting the stage for another potential legal showdown ahead of the upcoming municipal elections.
At the centre of the dispute is a 268-page report prepared in 2020 by Muneeza Sheikh, which concluded Dhillon violated the city’s Code of Conduct following allegations made by a local businesswoman during a city-led trade mission to Turkey in late 2019.
Dhillon, who represented Wards 9 and 10 from 2014 until losing his re-election bid in 2022, has consistently denied the allegations and is now aggressively pushing for the report to be removed from the city’s website. According to recent media reports, he is also considering a political comeback in the October municipal elections.
The former councillor argues that a letter allegedly written by his accuser in September 2023 withdrawing her complaint proves he was falsely accused and unfairly targeted. The letter surfaced more than a year after a civil lawsuit filed by the complainant against both Dhillon and the City of Brampton was settled out of court under confidential terms that included a nondisclosure agreement.
However, Sheikh told council during a May 6 presentation that she has been unable to verify the authenticity of the alleged retraction letter or establish contact with the complainant despite repeated attempts throughout 2024 and into this year.
Dhillon accused both Sheikh and city council of deliberately refusing to clear his name, alleging that their actions continue to damage his reputation. He also claims the integrity commissioner is operating under a conflict of interest due to past legal disputes involving council and Sheikh.
The original allegations stem from a 2019 trade mission to Turkey where a female delegate accused Dhillon of making repeated unwanted sexual advances in her hotel room. The complainant reported the alleged incident to police upon returning to Canada, but Peel Regional Police stated at the time that they lacked jurisdiction because the alleged incident occurred outside Canada.
The complainant, identified only as “Jane Doe” in legal and city records, also filed a formal complaint with the city, triggering Sheikh’s investigation under Brampton’s municipal Code of Conduct framework.
While Sheikh’s report was not a criminal finding and did not determine criminal guilt, it concluded that Dhillon violated council conduct rules and recommended sanctions that were ultimately adopted by council.
The controversy intensified further after the complainant launched a $2.1-million civil lawsuit against both Dhillon and the city. That case was later settled privately in 2022 without any admission of liability or wrongdoing by Dhillon.
This is not the first time Dhillon has attempted to challenge the report. In 2021, he sought a judicial review before the Ontario Superior Court, arguing Sheikh lacked jurisdiction to investigate the allegations. A three-judge panel rejected his arguments and upheld the integrity commissioner’s report in a ruling released later that year, additionally ordering Dhillon to pay legal costs to both Sheikh and the city.
The current dispute has also revived tensions surrounding Sheikh herself, who was controversially terminated by Brampton council in 2022 before later suing the city for $20 million in a highly publicized legal battle. She was eventually rehired in 2023.
Dhillon now argues that Sheikh’s prior legal conflicts with council members, including himself, compromise her ability to adjudicate the matter fairly. He believes the integrity commissioner for the Region of Peel should instead oversee any further proceedings.
But Sheikh strongly rejected the allegations, calling Dhillon’s claims false and misleading. She explained to council that even if the retraction letter were ultimately proven authentic, reopening the investigation would still require reassessing the broader body of evidence used in the original findings.
Among the most significant evidence cited in the original report was an audio recording allegedly captured by the complainant during the incident. According to Sheikh, the recording included the complainant repeatedly telling Dhillon “no” dozens of times in response to alleged unwanted advances.
Sheikh emphasized that as an officer of the court and integrity commissioner, she is legally and ethically obligated to verify any new evidence before reconsidering the findings or recommending removal of the report.
Complicating matters further, correspondence presented to council revealed that lawyers believed to have previously represented the complainant have reportedly lost contact with her for more than two years and are uncertain where she currently resides or whether she remains in Canada.
Dhillon insists the city already accepted the legitimacy of the retraction letter internally and referenced what he describes as an April 2024 memo from City Solicitor Sameer Akhtar acknowledging possession of the document without questioning its authenticity.
He has now threatened legal action against both Sheikh and the city, arguing the refusal to expunge the report amounts to political retaliation rather than a legitimate legal process.
Despite the heated debate and renewed political attention surrounding the matter, Brampton council ultimately chose not to introduce or debate any motion to remove the report from the city’s website, meaning the findings against Dhillon remain publicly accessible for now.
As municipal election season approaches, the unresolved controversy appears poised to once again become a major political issue in Brampton — one that continues to divide public opinion, raise questions about accountability and due process, and test the limits of municipal integrity oversight in Canada’s ninth-largest city.