MISSISSAUGA — Carolyn Parrish and Bonnie Crombie spent Thursday night’s CityNews debate shouting over each other, while Alvin Tedjo and Dipika Damerla argued the shouting is the reason to replace both of them.
The 90-minute debate, moderated by Mark McAllister at the Food Banks Mississauga warehouse on Eastgate Parkway, was supposed to be about poverty, housing and food security. One in 17 residents uses a food bank. Affordability was the top issue in a CityNews poll, named by 45 per cent of residents. Election day is Oct. 26.
It did not stay on the issues.
**The line that landed**
Parrish told Crombie, “Our staff are terrified of the blonde bombshell coming back.” Asked afterward why she said it, Parrish said Crombie “was yelling at everyone else and I had to get a word in edge-wise.” She admitted it “got a little out of hand,” then blamed Crombie for accelerating it. She also rejected a claim she sits idle in her office: her logs, she said, would show “probably 50 meetings a week.”
Crombie called the remark of a piece with how Parrish treats residents, and said the night produced “underhanded, mean-spirited statements… not worthy of a person in that position.” Voices rose, she said. Later debates need a lower temperature.
Tedjo was not a bystander. He said Crombie “quit” on Mississauga when she left the mayor’s chair to lead the Ontario Liberals. Afterward he said voters are tired of the two former mayors attacking each other online and, on Thursday, in person. “They want new, hopeful visions.”
Damerla was blunter. “At times I felt like it was kindergarten,” she said. Personal attacks are “not my style,” she added, “but it also tells you it’s time for change.”
**The numbers behind the noise**
A Canada Pulse Insights poll for CityNews, taken Sept. 14–25, put the race in a knot. Among decided voters: Parrish 30 per cent, Tedjo 26, Crombie 25, Damerla 12. Nearly two-thirds of voters want a new mayor. Only 36 per cent said Parrish deserves re-election. Among those looking for change, Tedjo led at 28 per cent.
On taxes, CityNews reported a 5.21 per cent increase this year and a record 9.2 per cent in 2025. Crombie put the two-year hit at 15 per cent and contrasted it with her own average of 3.4 per cent over nine years. Damerla wants a one-year freeze. Tedjo wants at least two years, plus a permanent senior freeze deferred until the home is sold. Parrish called the freeze talk unrealistic: 80 per cent of the budget is wages, fuel and operations are rising, and “somebody else has to pick that share up.” Crombie agreed a freeze “just puts you deeper into debt” and shifts the bill onto younger families.
On housing, Crombie cited $2,700 rents and wants development charges scrapped. Shelters are over capacity. Mississauga had 10 active encampments last month. Parrish said developers told her the city was, next to Oakville, the hardest place to get permits — “we fixed that.” Damerla said deeply affordable housing “cannot rely on the market,” and promised a city-wide homelessness task force.
On crime, Parrish said the force fell behind from 2017 to 2022: population up 130,000, police staffing up by only 36 a year. Damerla countered that the police budget is up 80 per cent in five years while solve rates have fallen, and called for CCTV. That budget is a Peel file. Whatever the next Mississauga mayor pushes on staffing or cameras lands on Brampton taxpayers too.
Policorner hosts another debate at Mississauga City Hall on Oct. 5. The last one Parrish plans to attend is Oct. 15 in Port Credit. Thursday did not settle the race. It showed a shouted exchange can matter as much as a tax plan.