City Councillor Charmaine Williams – Advocating for the People

BY: ALYSSA MAHADEO

Resilience is the true strength of women, their capacity to recover and bounce back from any difficulty is a true testament to how far they have come and the respect they have garnered over decades of trials and tribulations.

Newly elected Brampton City Councillor Charmaine Williams has been a member of the Bramalea community since 1980. Her family moved here from England and settled in the Brampton area, where she grew up, laid her roots, got married and started a family of her own.

“Growing up, Bramalea was such a close-knit community, with many young families so there where a lot of residents that grew up in Bramalea and we have this memory and this nostalgia of how it was living in Bramalea,” Williams explains. “So, when we were ready to raise our own kids, many of us came back, and you’ll find now that many of the communities are changing back into young families.”

As a homeowner and proud mother of five beautiful children, she knows the challenges that Brampton residents face and understands the need to build a better Brampton for all families, seniors and small business owners.

Before she entered the world of politics, Charmaine had been drawn to working with children. Professionally, she is a certified Multi-Systemic Therapist, behavioural consultant and counsellor and during her 19-year career, she has been a voice on behalf of families and children of all ages coping with domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, neglect, trauma and other personal challenges. 

“Since 1999 I’ve been working very closely with families and my career has morphed from being very child-centred and child-focused to working indirectly with the child and working more with the parents over time,” Williams explains.

“The progression that brought me to where I am now in politics has been an effect of working with a child, wanting to make the change with a child, and realizing the best way to work with the child is to get into the school system.”

In working with the school system, Williams realized that there was still much to be done with regards to the family, and the child’s home, so she began working directly with families and parents in order to positively influence the most change with the children she worked with.

“I started noticing a lot of similarities on how not-for-profit organizations are running and realizing that while you can do a lot of great work in the home, there is so much that needs to be done within our system,” Williams says.

Through working with these families and seeing the barriers they would have to face and navigate through Williams posed the idea of pursuing a position in politics, because that’s where a lot of the systemic changes happen.

Williams received support and encouragement from her peers who recognized that this type of leadership position is something that she would excel at. She considered the idea and saw the potential changes that could be made and decided she would run, but not before being presented with another more serious obstacle that would challenge her resilience as a woman.

After giving birth to her fifth child in September of last year, Williams suffered from a brain hemorrhage.

“I had a pretty severe brain hemorrhage that left me almost blind,” Williams recalls. “I couldn’t see and I was not able to walk, I was in the ICU and it was pretty traumatic I almost died.”

Regardless of her debilitating health, Williams knew that now being a mother of five children, she couldn’t just stay in a bed in the hospital.

“I had to get myself up and get myself better for my family, and so I pushed myself to recover and get back on my feet,” Williams says.

Once she was up and about, she revisited the idea of running for office. After what she had just recovered from, people tried to discourage her from running, pointing out that she had just survived this life-threatening trauma, and she now had five kids to take care off.

Williams would not be dissuaded and registered anyway, demonstrating her determination to pursue what is possible, motivated by the impact and changes that she could influence to better the Brampton community.

“I had a lot of doubters, and people who didn’t think I could win this,” Williams says, speaking to us from her office at city hall. “Anything is possible, we work to motivate young women of color and women are strong individuals, I don’t want anyone to put up barriers for themselves because you can do it, and I know it can be difficult, but you have to push yourself.”

While she was in that hospital bed, Williams looked at her kids and knew that she couldn’t leave them to anyone else. Her kids needed her, and she was determined to get better for their sake and for the sake of the community and families that need her to advocate for them.

“I really want to see Brampton be a safe and secure community, I want people to go out into the community without feeling like they have to look over their shoulders, I want kids to go to school in an environment that is nurturing and encouraging of people regardless of skin color, and I want people to feel like Brampton is their home, I want to make sure that I am leaving behind systems in place that can help everyone succeed.”