Polls have officially closed in Mississauga’s byelection after voters cast ballots Monday to elect their next mayor and Ward 5 councillor.
Twenty candidates are in the running for the city’s top job, which was triggered when former mayor Bonnie Crombie resigned in January to run for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party.
CBC Toronto is running a live election night special at 8 p.m. ET. You can watch in the player above.
Some 117 polling stations across the city opened at 10 a.m. and closed at 8 p.m.
Roughly 24,000 voters cast their ballots in advance voting, which took place on May 24-25 and June 1-2, the City of Mississauga says.
Just over 21 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the city’s last municipal election in 2022, down from 27 per cent in the 2018 election.
Check out the live results at the bottom of this story as the tallies roll in after 8 p.m. ET
The winning candidate in the mayoral race will become only the third person to hold the post since 1978, after Crombie and long-serving former mayor Hazel McCallion.
Voters have indicated housing and affordability concerns are among the top issues at stake during a time of expansion that has seen Mississauga grow into the third-largest city in Ontario and the seventh-largest in Canada.
Parrish, Damerla and Tedjo among leading candidates
The three mayoral candidates who consistently led polls of eligible voters offered different visions for the future of the city.
Carolyn Parrish, a former city councillor and federal member of Parliament, initially held a wide lead over her opponents in early polling.
To run for mayor, Parrish resigned as councillor for Ward 5, whose residents are also electing a candidate to fill her seat in Monday’s byelection.
“This is an opportunity for my experience to click in, my knowledge. I’ve really put my whole soul into being a councillor for the last 13 years,” Parrish said in a phone interview.
“I’ve learned a lot, and I believe I’m the right person to actually solve some of the problems we’re facing.”
With the key issues of housing availability and affordability at the forefront of the race, Parrish said she would work to rezone land for residential use in shopping hubs to minimize disruption to existing neighbourhoods.
“You have to try to keep everything in balance. But you also have to build more housing and you have to build it quickly,” said Parrish.
Dipika Damerla, councillor for Ward 7 and a former Ontario MPP, said “there’s no time to waste” for the new mayor to start working for residents.
“You hear about the housing crisis, but you also hear about the sense that city hall doesn’t listen to people. And so they feel that their voice is not valued,” Damerla said.
“My commitment is that, in the past, I do listen and as mayor that will be my style,” Damerla said.
Damerla added that she would work to approve housing applications faster, prioritize creating walkable neighbourhoods, and waive development charges for purpose-built rentals.
“I think Mississauga has this wonderful opportunity in front of us to become that next-level city. We’re going to grow with that growth,” Damerla said.
Alvin Tedjo, councillor for Ward 2, said this election is distinct because residents have “a real choice” in the direction they want the city to go.
“Do we want to keep things the way they are, try to focus more on those smaller neighbourhoods?” Tedjo asked.
“Or do we understand that the need for housing is so great and the need for affordability is so great — and the two are linked — that we need to have a different approach moving forward?”
Tedjo emphasized he would prioritize building “transit-oriented communities” and freezing property taxes until 2026.
“People don’t see an opportunity for their kids or their grandkids to live in the city because we know how expensive it is. I’ve got three young kids myself … I want them to be able to do what I did, which is live in the community they grew up in,” Tedjo said.