It was a debate that pitted an incumbent mayor and a former three-term mayor of Mississauga against two city councillors who believe the city is ready for a new look and new ideas.
The 90-minute Mississauga mayoral debate moderated by CityNews’ Mark McAllister on Thursday had some heated moments and a few zingers as each candidate tried to separate themselves from the pack while defending their respective track records.
The debate format touched on several key themes affecting residents of Mississauga. Each participant was confronted with a question, followed by an open debate. Here’s what unfolded.
Theme 1: Affordability and cost of living tied to U.S. trade war
A recent Canada Pulse Insights poll for CityNews asked Mississauga residents to pick the three most important issues facing the city from a list of 22. Affordability and the cost of living topped the list, at 45 per cent. More and more people are finding it difficult to make ends meet while businesses, companies, and entire sectors are impacted by an unstable economy as a result of tariffs and the trade war with the U.S.
The rising cost of food products have impacted grocery prices and 1 in 17 Mississauga residents are using a food bank — with even more relying on them for prolonged support.
Question: “What specific actions and policies would you want to implement, as quickly as possible, that would ease the burden and lower the cost of living for residents?”
Dipika Damerla: “The two things that city hall controls directly that residents pay for are property taxes and user fees. And that’s why my plan is about freezing property taxes next year and then to keep property taxes as low as possible after that … the single most powerful thing that city hall can do is to freeze the taxes and then going forward keep them low.”
“It’s not just about protecting the jobs that are tariff hit, but it’s about creating an ecosystem of start ups, of new businesses, of being business-friendly so that we can attract more businesses here big and small to create the jobs we need.
Bonnie Crombie: “We need to keep our city more affordable let’s start with your taxes, that is something under our control, your taxes went up 15 per cent in the last two years, 10 per cent last year and another 5.5 per cent this year … Under by administration all three of them voted for the budget, we voted for 1.7 per cent at the city and an average over nine years … of 3.4 per cent. Let’s start with making your life more affordable.
“Rent at $2700? We’ve gotta work to make more purpose-built rental properties that are affordable.”
Alvin Tedjo: “It’s always about affordability … I’m proud of the record that I was able to do as councillor, we introduced free transit fares for kids to help families afford to use transit, we introduced new utility rate cuts for seniors for low income and for low water users, but we need to do so much more and the plan I’ve put forward is to freeze those property taxes, not just for one year, but for two years at minimum … and if we can do it for longer, we’ll do it for longer.
“We also need to help the seniors who built this city afford to live here too. And I have a plan to freeze their property taxes permanently by deferring them to the sale of their home.”
Carolyn Parrish: “Well it would be very nice if we could freeze senior’s taxes and it would be very nice to freeze everybody’s taxes, but as we’ve seen the cost of fuel is going up, the operation of the city is going up, 80 per cent of our budgets are going to wages that go to union people that are also hungry and also requiring increases every time they do their settlements, so it’s very nice to say we’re going to freeze senior’s taxes, but then somebody else has to pick that share up, young people with families, we can’t freeze taxes, we can do the very best we can … we also have an economic development staff who are bringing businesses and investment into our city every day.
Key clash during open debate portion
Bonnie Crombie stressed the city needs an auditor general to look into what she called out-of-control spending by the current administration. “Let’s go line by line, let’s see why this council has been on a spending spree, where that money has been going, and let’s stop the bleeding.”
Parrish replied: “Bonnie Crombie had 10 years to hire an auditor general,” referring to her previous tenures as Mississauga mayor.
Theme 2: Housing and Homelessness
Beyond the basic cost of living, entering the housing market remains a challenge. Affordable housing is limited and while the average monthly rent has slightly dropped in the last couple of years, it remains extremely high.
For those experiencing homelessness, the shelter system is overcapacity right now and, as of last month, there were 10 active encampments in Mississauga alone.
Before tonight’s debate, Food Banks Mississauga and Metamorphosis asked residents to submit questions in advance.
This is one that was received from community members.
Question 1: What specific, measurable policies will you implement in your first year to create deeply affordable housing, protect current renters from renovictions, and providing tangible support for our unhoused neighbours?”
Crombie: “I think if we eliminate development charges we will make the cost of building lower and we will make the price to the purchaser, the family that will move in, lower, and of course the cities would have to be repaid from the federal or provincial governments for lost revenue. But there’s’ so much we can do, emergency rent assistance for people who might be evicted from homes, look at alternatives, work with the churches who have vast parking lots that we can build on … look at our mall space … we could use them for affordable housing … lets’ give people options.”
Tedjo: “I think we all agree that we need more housing … We need to make it easier for all types of housing, the supportive housing that we need to incentivize, rental housing, we need to really focus on how do we approve those conditions so that people actually start building.”
Parrish: There is no single solution and our council .. .has done more in two years than were done in the 10 years before. The developers are telling me that miss next to Oakville was the most difficult place to build in, the most difficult place to get permits in, the most difficult place to get rezoning so we fixed that.”
Damerla: “When it comes to deeply affordable housing we cannot rely on the market, that’s the reality … when it comes to homelessness residents want two things, they want the homeless dealt with with dignity but they also want safe neighbourhoods and both things can be true and both things are valid and we have to get that balance right … we need to have a city-wide task force and as mayor I will lead on that…”
Key clash during open debate portion
After incumbent Carolyn Parrish and former three-term Mississauga Mayor Bonnie clashed over who was more culpable for a lack of affordable housing being built, Alvin Tedjo pounced.
“This is part of the problem,” he said, of their bickering. “We need a change, we need a change in leadership to get these housing units built.”
Theme 3: Taxes and municipal spending
Taxes, the budget, and spending were also brought up in polling for CityNews as top issues for residents. Property taxes have steadily risen in recent years, adding to the economic challenges that many Mississauga residents are facing.
This year they rose by 5.21 per cent and a record 9.2 per cent in 2025, resulting in a demand for greater financial accountability at City Hall.
Question 1: Can taxpayers expect to see rates rise, stay the same level or be reduced under your leadership and what will you do to better balance the books?”
Tedjo: “This is incredibly important … how do we help? We do it by freezing their property taxes at zero and for seniors, they can choose to defer their property taxes until the sale of their home … that’s how we help people stay in their homes.”
Parrish: “We have just done a study … looking at all the subsidies we give seniors on property tax, we had the best record in all the GTA,, so that is already doable, that’s not a big deal.
Damerla: “The single most important thing that council can do when it comes to affordability is keep those taxes low … the intent is let’s keep those taxes low without cutting services.
Crombie: “I’m going to go back to we need a more sustainable fax rate that’s at the rate of inflation I’m going to reiterate that mine was 1.7 per cent at the city which everyone voted for and average of 3.4 per cent over the nine years. I also want to talk about freezing taxes because I don’t think it’s a sustainable solution, it just puts you deeper into debt and deeper into a problem situations and it also shifts the burden onto younger families.”
Key Clash during open debate portion
Damerla attacked Tedjo’s property tax plans. “The problem Alvin is that your plan still has no details .. you’re misleading, you keep saying it’s a property tax freeze for seniors, you do not even have the word defer on your website … and there’s no details is this for wealthy seniors? If it’s for wealthy seniors how is that fair? You know what a wealthy senior is going to do? Not pay taxes, save that money and play the stock market while young families get more and more far behind.”
To that Tedjo snapped back, “I’m the only one here with a young family.”
More to come
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