Bonnie Crombie will officially enter the race for mayor of Mississauga on Tuesday, ending months of speculation that the most recent Ontario Liberal leader would try to win back her old job.
“Please join me as I officially register as a candidate,” Crombie wrote in a short message sent to a small group of supporters and Mississauga councillors on Sunday. “I’d love to have you there as we mark this exciting moment together.”
Crombie succeeded the legendary Hazel McCallion as mayor in 2014.
After being re-elected to a third term in a landslide in 2022, she left to run for the Ontario Liberal leadership a year later. Though the party made back some ground and regained official party status in the 2025 provincial election, Crombie lost her bid for the Mississauga—Cooksville seat and resigned as leader in January.
Crombie announced her intention to resign after earning a tepid 57 per cent support in a mandatory leadership review vote following the 2025 provincial election.
While Crombie’s time at the helm was mixed, Liberal fortunes improved under her watch. The party won 30 per cent of the popular vote in the February 2025 election, second to the Progressive Conservatives and higher than the 18.5 per cent won by the New Democrats, who hold the second-most seats and serve as the Official Opposition.
The party also increased its seat count from nine to 14 MPPs, and boosted fundraising events that added millions of dollars to Liberal coffers for the first time since 2018.
She will be running against former council colleague and current mayor Carolyn Parrish, who won a June 2024 byelection, as well as current councillors Alvin Tedjo and Dipika Damerla.
In a post on X on Saturday evening, Parrish, who registered to run on the first day nominations opened, said Crombie “announced today, at a community BBQ, that Mississauga needs stable leadership. I agree! I believe in fact we have that now! No aspirations to other levels of government. Total dedication to our city. Hopefully we all agree with Ms. Crombie.”
Alongside the post, she shared a CP24 clip from her 2024 election night win in which Crombie says she is “ecstatic that Carolyn has won” and says Parrish will be a “formidable mayor.”
Parrish’s comment raises a key question observers of the race have had: how will Crombie convince voters she deserves her former position after she suddenly left?
Her candidacy could also change the mayoral campaign into a fierce battle between two high-profile rivals, potentially opening up an unexpected pathway to victory for lesser-known candidates like Tedjo and Damerla.
“Broadly speaking the race becomes very competitive and you could see someone actually become mayor with a much lower vote share,” said David Valentin, a principal at polling firm Liaison Strategies. Valentin added it could be possible to win the mayoral election with 30 or 35 per cent, as opposed to the usual 45 or 50 per cent.
Crombie won the 2022 mayoral election with 78 per cent of the popular vote. In the 2024 by election, Parrish was elected with 31 per cent of the vote, while Tedjo received 25 per cent and Damerla 19 per cent.
Voters could look at Crombie and Parrish and say “one is our past, one is our present, and look at the two councillors and say one of these two is our future,” said Zachary Spicer, an associate professor at York University specializing in local government.
Name recognition won’t be enough and Crombie will have to articulate a solid campaign platform, he said.
A spokesperson for Tedjo said “Mississauga deserves a mayor focused on making life more affordable and building a city that works for everyone, not a fallback plan when their other political ambitions have failed.”
Damerla, in an interview mid-June, said she didn’t give much thought to Crombie in making her decision to run for mayor, and that she, like Mississauga, is “looking forward.”
Crombie entering the race will also bring provincial involvement to the fall municipal election. In March, Premier Doug Ford said he would “send an army” to help Parrish defeat Crombie.
Spicer said Crombie’s provincial loss may not matter much in Mississauga where she is well-established, as voters tend to distinguish between provincial and municipal politics.
While Mississauga may not have voted Liberal in the last provincial election it may not have been personal — they might have considered Ford best to deal with the U.S. tariff issues in that moment, he said. All six Mississauga ridings were won by the PCs after the 2025 election.
Crombie declined a request for an interview Sunday, and said she would have more to say on Tuesday.
