{"id":932542,"date":"2026-10-14T09:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/932542\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:22:12","slug":"in-mississaugas-ward-2-candidates-spar-over-crime-housing-and-property-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/932542\/","title":{"rendered":"In Mississauga’s Ward 2, Candidates Spar Over Crime, Housing, and Property Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThe Race in Mississauga\u2019s Ward 2 at a Glance:\n<\/p>\n

Current Councillor: Alvin Tedjo, first elected in 2022, is stepping aside to run for mayor.
\nThe Candidates: 14 candidates are vying for the seat, including trustee Leeann Cole and former federal Conservative candidate Tom Ellard.
\nCentral Issues: Car thefts, rising property taxes, and multi-storey residential developments are emerging as major issues.<\/p>\n

There was a time when Alvin Tedjo would never have considered running for mayor.\u00a0 As a first-time councillor elected in 2022, he was happy tending to the concerns of Ward 2, in Mississauga\u2019s southwestern corner. But that quickly changed. In 2024, he ran in the mayoral by-election, coming in second to current mayor Carolyn Parrish. Now Tedjo, known for his measured and deliberate presence on council, has another chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very happy being a councillor\u2026 But seeing how the mayor led the city, I had some serious issues with that and decided I couldn\u2019t just sit back.\u201d Some of those issues, he says, have been raised time and again by his own constituents, such as the city\u2019s failure to secure more funding from Peel Region.<\/p>\n

Ward 2 hugs the shoreline of Lake Ontario and is bound by the Credit River to the east, Winston Churchill Boulevard to the west, and sections of Dundas Street and the QEW to the north. It includes quiet residential neighbourhoods such as Sheridan Homelands, Park Royal, and the estates of Lorne Park. Rattray Marsh, a 94-acre stretch of protected wetland conservation, is also located there, as is the Clarkson GO station, a major transit hub that sees more riders than any GO station in the province. Southdown, Mississauga\u2019s second-largest employment district, is also part of the ward, and contains, among other things, the province\u2019s largest cement plant and serves as the nucleus for the city\u2019s water infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t \"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t \"Left,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t Left, residents walk between apartment buildings on Truscott Drive. Right, Mississauga Ward 2 contains the province\u2019s largest cement plant, located along its southern border.\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

With Tedjo opting to run in this year\u2019s mayoral race, the ward is at an inflection point. The council seat is open to anyone who wants to take a shot. There are 14 candidates registered, from co-op housing activists to real estate investors. What the ward needs now, says Tedjo, is someone who can find a delicate balance between Mississauga\u2019s provincially mandated goal to build 120,000 units of housing, while managing concerns from the ward\u2019s loudest\u2014and most affulent\u2014residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s certainly a drive for change, and there\u2019s a drive against it,\u201d says Tedjo. \u201cThat\u2019s a difficult thing to balance. When the city needs more housing the question then becomes, \u2018well, where?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFind fact-checked bios of every candidate in Mississauga Ward 2<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead More<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Recently, hundreds of Lorne Park residents signed a petition opposing an 11-storey condo proposed for a site on Lakeshore, citing a risk of \u201churricane-force winds\u201d caused by the building\u2019s height, damage to the Carolinian forest ecology, increased traffic, groundwater management, and general incompatibility with the surrounding single-family detached homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s allow the community to once again have a voice in how their neighbourhoods evolve,\u201d pleaded one local resident at a planning and development committee meeting last month where the condo proposal was considered.<\/p>\n

Though most of the residents\u2019 concerns were downplayed by the development team, and Mississauga\u2019s planning staff recommended moving forward with the proposal, the item was deferred to a future council meeting to further address some of those concerns.<\/p>\n

The area around Clarkson GO station, northwest of Lorne Park, is an obvious one for intensification, but those efforts, too, have been plagued by controversy. A master plan completed by the city in 2025 that would have prioritized more density (including affordable housing), pedestrian connections, greenspace, and a major retail hub had to be scrapped when the provincial government increased their density requirements for transit-oriented communities. Municipal staff are currently drafting the Clarkson Village study, but that likely won\u2019t be ready until next year.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the tension between the need for more housing and the desire to preserve the city\u2019s more established pockets, Tedjo warns against writing off the concerns of Ward 2\u2019s more affluent residents just because they happen to have some of the highest property values in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because it\u2019s affluent doesn\u2019t mean it doesn\u2019t have issues,\u201d he says. \u201cProperty taxes have gone up 30 percent in the last four years. In terms of real dollars, that has a much more significant impact on residents here \u2026 If you\u2019re a pensioner or on a fixed income, those impacts are hard to absorb.\u201d<\/p>\n

For candidate Leeann Cole, the rise in property taxes is exactly the issue she is banking on to nab the votes of the city\u2019s more politically engaged residents. A former nurse and former vice-chair of the Peel District School Board, Cole was one of the first to sign up to run for council. She\u2019s hoping the head start will help\u2014estimating she\u2019s clocked more than two million steps campaigning since.<\/p>\n

While fielding the odd complaint from residents about gypsy moths and kids driving erratically on e-scooters, Cole says concerns about rising property taxes have dominated most of her doorstep conversations.<\/p>\n

\"TrusteeTrustee Leeann Cole is running for council in Mississauga Ward 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not saying \u2018We don\u2019t want to pay property taxes.\u2019 They\u2019re not saying \u2018We don\u2019t want to pay for city services,\u2019\u201d she insists. \u201cThey\u2019re saying they\u2019re too high, too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tedjo is correct about the 30 percent residential property tax increase over four years (slightly more than the City of Toronto). For a million-dollar home, that has added more than $2,500 to the annual carrying costs of a property, and many homes in Lorne Park are valued at much more than that. How easily a resident could weather those costs would, of course, depend on their lifestyle.<\/p>\n

In Mississauga, properties are taxed both by the city and by the Region of Peel. As it stands, the City of Mississauga funds 62 percent of the Peel Regional Police budget versus Brampton, which pays 38 percent despite having a larger population. This imbalance has been a longstanding concern for Mississauga residents, some of whom believe they are \u201csubsidizing\u201d Brampton and Caledon\u2019s municipal services, in turn requiring them to pay higher property taxes. According to a statement from the City of Mississauga, in 2025, 4.6 percent of the City\u2019s property tax bill was \u201cdirectly tied\u201d to a historic 23.3 percent increase in the Peel Police budget.<\/p>\n

Last month Mayor Carolyn Parrish told reporters that in the last five years, Mississauga has subsidized Brampton and Caledon to the tune of $399 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need someone to say, \u2018Enough is enough,\u2019\u201d says Cole. \u201cCan you imagine how our property taxes would stall for years if we got that money back?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole admits she\u2019s not quite sure, procedurally, how a rebalancing of the police budget would happen. But as she laces up her shoes and makes her way through the leafy residential streets and small-town retail corridors of Ward 2, she believes she has the chops to move the dial.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m little and blonde, but I\u2019m pretty mighty and I have a big personality,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s people like that that you need in council to take the hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Ellard, another long-time Lorne Park resident running for council, also believes Ward 2 residents want to see \u201cmanaged growth\u201d in the area, growth that preserves the character of the ward\u2019s older residential neighbourhoods, even if it means saying no to certain kinds of housing. With a large proportion of greenspace, and most of the city\u2019s public waterfront access, there\u2019s little place for higher-density housing in the ward, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cResidents don\u2019t want to see new condo towers that ultimately become safety deposit boxes in the sky,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cWard 2 is like a country oasis in an urban setting, so that\u2019s what draws people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer federal Conservative candidate and Lorne Park resident Tom Ellard is running for council in Mississauga Ward 2.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also counting on his fresh perspective as an outsider to council to tackle what he sees as the ward\u2019s biggest problem: crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrime is out of control,\u201d he tells The Local. \u201cWhen I\u2019m out at the doors, everyone either knows somebody who has had their house broken into or has had their car stolen, or both. And that\u2019s not a nice place to find yourself in, especially because we have a large constituency here that is moving into the seniors\u2019 bracket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Peel Regional police say only three percent of reported stolen vehicles in Mississauga are from the neighbourhood, that hasn\u2019t stopped nearly 400 residents from forming the Lorne Park Neighbourhood Safety Group, dedicated to keeping watch in the neighbourhood and advocating for tougher crime legislation.<\/p>\n

Ellard, who served in the military before finding management work in the corporate sector, moved to the neighbourhood 22 years ago, where he and his wife raised two sons. When he first moved in, he recalls, his wife phoned Peel Regional Police to inquire about local safety initiatives and they laughed, telling her she had no reason to worry: There was no crime in Lorne Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose days are gone,\u201d says Ellard. \u201cThat\u2019s something I would like to see change.\u201d His plan for that is to support neighourhood watch programs and advocate for more \u201cvisual deterrents,\u201d such as a larger law enforcement presence, in the area. Like Cole, he believes a rebalancing of the police budget will allow for more law enforcement presence in Mississauga, specifically in Ward 2, although he admits the problem of crime is a complex one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not Batman,\u201d he says. \u201cI can\u2019t solve all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Race in Mississauga\u2019s Ward 2 at a Glance: Current Councillor: Alvin Tedjo, first elected in 2022, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194297],"tags":[49,48,55405,311578],"class_list":["post-932542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mississauga","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mississauga","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}