As Mississauga election candidates debate tackling the rising cost of living, is there a price to pay for tax relief? | Spare News

With the cost of living a top concern for Mississauga voters ahead of the municipal election, many residents are calling for property-tax relief as economists warn that cuts to revenue could impact city services and infrastructure.

In an August 2026 Liaison Strategies poll, affordability was the top concern among Mississauga voters at 19 per cent, followed by taxes at 17 per cent and housing at 16 per cent.

Mary Simpson, president of the Town of Port Credit Association (TOPCA), believes property taxes are among the top issues shaping people’s perception of affordability in the city.

Simpson noted that at TOPCA’s mid-year meeting this July, multiple residents brought up this issue as one of their main grievances.

One “person in his 60s said he is being priced out of his home … he doesn’t know how much longer he can stay” in Mississauga, said Simpson.

In 2025, Mississauga’s portion of residential property taxes increased by 3.3 per cent, followed by a 1.61 per cent increase in 2026.

However, the total property-tax bill, including taxes collected by the Region of Peel and other bodies, increased by 9.2 per cent in 2025 and 5.21 per cent in 2026. The bulk of those increases came from Peel rather than Mississauga.

The City of Mississauga’s own 2025 resident survey found that taxes and property taxes were a growing concern for residents, with 11 per cent pointing to them as a top issue, up from six per cent in 2023. The survey also found the proportion of respondents who felt they had received good value from their municipal tax dollars had dropped to 49 per cent compared to 55 per cent two years prior.

When asked how the city should respond to increasing costs, 41 per cent of survey participants said the city should not increase taxes even if that means service cuts, while 34 per cent supported increasing taxes to maintain Mississauga’s existing services.

Enid Slack, the director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, an organization at the University of Toronto that focuses on municipal fiscal health, said debate about freezing or cutting property taxes raises questions about how Mississauga would pay for the services residents have come to rely on. 

“The problem with reducing taxes on businesses or on residential properties is how are you going to pay for the services or infrastructure people want?”

“People want good services, they want things to work, they don’t want potholes on their roads, they want good transit service, they want parks and these cost money and if you’re going to be reducing taxes, then you have to find another source of revenue,” said Slack.

In April 2026, council approved a motion directing staff to study different tax relief options for 2027. Staff will report back to councillors with information on costs, potential impacts and various alternative approaches that could be taken.

The 2025 BMA Management Consulting Municipal Study, published by the City of Mississauga in May 2026, compared Mississauga’s property taxes with 128 municipalities across Ontario. The study includes municipalities ranging from Thunder Bay and Sudbury to Brampton, Oakville and Toronto. 

The study found that Mississauga’s average residential property taxes were $6,190. Among nearby municipalities included in the study, average residential property taxes were reported as $6,434 in Brampton, $6,883 in Oakville and $5,192 in Toronto.

Additionally, the BMA study examined property taxes relative to household income. Mississauga’s average household income was $137,732 in 2025, while average residential property taxes were $6,190, meaning property taxes represented about 4.5 per cent of household income in comparison with 3.8 per cent average of property taxes relative to income for the 128 municipalities studied. 

For the municipalities included in the study, property taxes varied from two per cent in Greenstone to 5.1 per cent in Owen Sound. Mississauga’s 4.5 per cent property-tax burden was classified as “high” based on this measure.

While bringing these numbers down, and even freezing taxes, may increase popularity among residents and voters, economists have warned about the potential impact of cuts. 

Dr. Robert Gillezeau, assistant professor of economic analysis and policy at the University of Toronto, stated that a reduction in property taxes for Mississauga would be “fiscally irresponsible” and would realistically need to be paired with a significant reduction in municipal services for revenue to match city expenditures. 

“Real revenues will decline and cities can’t run deficits … If you genuinely want to freeze property taxes, you would need to couple that with a dramatic reduction in services delivered by a municipal government,” said Gillezeau. 

Gillezeau stated that it is likely that one of the first things a city could see impacted by tax cuts is infrastructure and that “in all likelihood, the cost can be higher at the end of day” when key services are neglected. 

Property tax cuts “eat into the capital plans of the municipality in a way that may not be noticed immediately, but creates giant problems,” said Gillezeau. 

Mississauga is facing significant infrastructure costs. The city has estimated that it will spend an average of $275 million annually over a 10-year period to maintain and replace current infrastructure. The city also says an additional $119 million a year is needed to fully address its “state of good repair” needs.

At the same time, the cost of delivering municipal services has continued to rise. In the 2026 budget, the City of Mississauga said maintaining existing service levels would require an additional $84.6 million, with labour costs accounting for the majority of these increased expenses.

“Municipalities cannot budget for a deficit in their operating budget. That means expenditures have to equal revenues,” said Slack. 

Slack notes that cities in Ontario generally cannot run ongoing operating deficits in the same way that other levels of government can. When taxes are cut, municipalities have fewer options available to them. These options include increasing fees, receiving transfers from the federal government and drawing money from reserves.

Gillezeau said that municipalities asking for transfers from the federal and provincial governments and drawing on reserve funds are not realistic plans to make up for lost revenue. 

Gillezeau stated that asking other levels of government for transfers is like a municipality saying we are going to “put out our hat and pretend everything is going to work out” while drawing on reserves may lower property taxes in the present but can create increases in the future. 

“They are fundamentally unserious offers,” said Gillezeau. 

Property taxes are Mississauga’s primary source of funding, accounting for about 57 per cent of the funding it receives. The city does not have provincial permission to introduce other revenue sources, such as a municipal land transfer tax, leaving it with limited avenues to balance its budget.

“Municipalities can ask for more transfers (from the federal and provincial governments). It doesn’t mean they’re going to get them. So sometimes we see user fees go up. It can be water fees … transit fees … recreation fees. But more likely services are going to be cut,” added Slack.