For Immediate Release
March 3rd, 2020
“Good afternoon, Bonjour, Aaniin Boozhoo, Wacheya.
I want to thank David Wojcik and the team from the Mississauga Board of Trade for providing me with the opportunity to be here today to address Mississauga’s business community.
David, thank you for emceeing today’s event and for introducing our dignitaries, including our City’s senior leadership and dedicated team of Councillors.
Nothing we achieve would be possible without staff and Council working together in unison to move Mississauga forward.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge our City Manager, Janice Baker.
These are Janice’s last months as our CAO.
She will be retiring in May after nearly 30 years of public service.
Our City is in the enviable position we are today thanks in large part to her leadership, dedication and hard work.
Please join me in congratulating Janice on her next chapter and thanking her for her over 20 years of service to our City.
While she will be missed, I am confident that Mississauga is in good hands and prepared for the future as Paul Mitcham, our Commissioner of Community Services is set to take over the reins as our new City Manager.
Please join me in congratulating Paul.
Please feel free to give him a call if you need anything.
In my address last year, I stood before you to say that the state of our City is strong.
And as we usher in 2020, I’m proud to report that we remain stronger than ever.
Mississauga is gaining momentum and prominence on the world stage.
We remain a business capital in Canada having been ranked as one of the best places to live and do business in the country.
This doesn’t happen overnight and not without a lot of hard work…
From Council, staff, residents and our City’s business community…
It is thanks to you that we have been able to seize the opportunities before us and leverage innovation, technology and partnerships to ensure Mississauga not only competes but remains ahead of the curve…
We have an incredible opportunity before us….
We have all the right ingredients…
And, a solid plan in place to build a sustainable, world-class City of the future…
One that is capable of competing with the New York’s, London’s, Tokyo’s and Paris’ of the world…
We’ve always said the twenty-first century is ours for the taking.
In my opinion, it is not only ours for the taking; it’s ours for the making.
As we embark on our roaring 20s, the face of our city is changing.
We are stepping out of the shadow of our neighbours to the east, shedding our image as a suburban bedroom community.
We have become a City and a destination in our own right…
Mississauga is on the rise…
An incredible amount of work has gone into transforming Mississauga into a world-class city over the last 46 years…
While we have pride in our past, we have an incredible amount of faith and optimism in what the future holds for our City…
There is nothing like the dawn of a new decade to remind us how far we have come…
What we have achieved in the past twenty years is nothing short of astounding…
People are looking at Mississauga differently.
And, with good reason.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
Let’s flashback to just before the turn of the century, when Mississauga was Canada’s seventh-largest City…
With a population of just over 600,000…
We still had a fair amount of undeveloped greenfield land and we were primarily building detached, single-family homes…
We were home to just over 380,000 jobs…
Downtown, for the most part, was City Hall, the Living Arts Centre and Square One shopping centre, sparsely dotted with high-rises…
18 compared to the 51 we have today…
We had a vision for our downtown but weren’t ready to fully realize it.
To the south, the four sisters at the Lakeview Generating Station defined the eastern part of our waterfront, burning coal, emitting smog and preventing access to the water
And to the west, the Texaco Oil refinery lands had been sitting vacant for decades, waiting to realize their full potential.
Over the last 20 years, we have changed in many ways.
We grew, acquiring over 900 acres of land along Ninth Line from Milton…
We showed the world that we are capable of hosting large-scale events…
From celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary to welcoming the Memorial Cup, the Olympic Torch, the Pan Am Games, and so much more…
We grew from Canada’s seventh-largest city to its sixth, with a population approaching 800,000, welcoming on average 23 new residents a day.
This rapid growth fuelled significant commercial and industrial investments…
We became an economic powerhouse, a hub for jobs and commerce…
In fact, in the last five years alone, our job growth has increased two times faster than our population
That’s a staggering statistic that speaks to the soundness of our local economy…
We continued to invest in growing and diversifying our business community…
Making us the second-largest area of employment in the GTA and home to over 98,000 businesses…
Today, we are home to nearly half a million jobs…
Along the way, our partners grew with us…
Toronto Pearson International Airport, Canada’s largest airport and a significant employer in our City nearly doubled the volume of passengers travelling through the airport…
Now welcoming over 50 million passengers a year and employing more than 50,000 people.
I’m proud that for the first time we have ratified an agreement with the airport and our relationship has never been stronger.
The heart of healthcare in our community, Trillium Health Partners, celebrated the completion of the Credit Valley hospital redevelopment…
Bringing them one step closer to building the capacity they need to serve our City’s rapidly growing population, reduce wait times and improve access to care for the over 1.7 million patients they serve each year…
The highest in the province…
Over the next 20 years, no hospital in Ontario will require more services than THP.
This is why it’s so important that we continue to make progress on the redevelopment and expansion of the Mississauga Hospital site…
To ensure we can meet the growing demand…
While also ensuring our culturally diverse and aging population has a place to age gracefully and live out their final days…
And, thanks to decades of advocacy from Council and the community, we were pleased to announce late last year that Mississauga will soon build its first residential hospice, in partnership with Heart House Hospice.
Over the past 20 years UTM expanded significantly, shedding its reputation as a suburban campus and growing faster than any other site in the U of T network.
And MBOT, Mississauga’s voice for business, grew significantly, now representing over 1,000 members and 40,000 employees in our City.
In the last two decades, Mississauga solidified our position as a place where people choose to be and where businesses choose to grow and thrive.
We have begun to shed our suburban image, joining cities around the world in ushering in the urban millennium…
We are changing how we develop by embracing mixed-use communities, with a focus on health, quality of life, and job creation.
We are building transit to connect people to their city and beyond.
We remain focused on building affordable housing so everyone who wishes to do so, can afford to live and work in our community.
And, we are doing this by keeping sustainability as our guiding principle.
For those who’ve been away for a while, nowhere is this change more evident than in our downtown core.
We have shifted our focus to building up, not out.
From the construction of the award-winning Absolute “Marilyn Monroe” Towers that define our skyline and the Chicago Condos …
To securing key infrastructure investments that have changed how our City moves and connects across the region and beyond…
Including expanding the City Centre transit terminal and constructing the Mississauga Transitway along the 403, which has now reached 5 million riders per year.
To securing historic funding from the province for the largest infrastructure project in our City’s history, the Hurontario LRT…
To creating a destination that showcases the best of Mississauga and draws people to the heart of our downtown, Celebration Square, which has welcomed 4 million people since it opened…
And last but not least, opening the doors on our second post-secondary institution, Sheridan College…
A centre for excellence, creativity and a hub for innovation, the envy of many other cities
The work of the past 20 years culminates today…
We have an incredibly rare opportunity before us…
To realize our true potential as a modern, vibrant, diverse and growing global city with endless potential…
People are looking at Mississauga differently…
As an established, growing city in its own right…
With our own unique “Sauga” identity…
The past twenty years were impressive, but 2019 was a seminal year for our city.
Mississauga soared to new heights and stepped up on the world stage like never before…
We moved from being an edge city to an influencer in our own right…
We became trendsetters.
In fact, we broke the internet.
It’s true.
Last year, you couldn’t turn on the news or scroll through your feeds without seeing or hearing about Mississauga.
It felt as if almost overnight, we became a hip, happening city that was “on fire,” a magnet for culture, sports and a destination for film and talent.
A sought after City and an international tourist destination.
Jurassic Park West saw over 150,000 fans descend on Celebration Square to take in the historic Raptor’s Championship.
The energy and enthusiasm in the square was palpable.
But, our basketball fever didn’t end there.
Not long after the Raptors brought home the championship trophy, 19-year old Mississauga native RJ Barrett was drafted to the NBA, being selected as the New York Knicks third overall draft pick.
Our City’s love for basketball could only be matched by our love for tennis.
When hometown hero Bianca Andreescu became the first Canadian to win the U.S. Open, we stepped up to the challenge, hosting a massive rally in her honour.
Tens of thousands of people cheered on Bianca as we presented her with keys to the city and a street, “Andreescu Way” to celebrate her influence and impact on Mississauga.
These events attracted international headlines and attention around the world.
The Mississauga brand has never been stronger.
Our moment in the spotlight didn’t end there.
Over the past year, our film and television sector exploded, and we have quickly became known as Studio City North.
Mississauga became the backdrop for some of the hottest T.V. shows from Handmaid’s Tale to Designated Survivor, Titans and more.
As a result, our film revenue hit a record-breaking all-time high, more than doubling in 2019 from the year before.
On any given day, four productions can be seen filming at locations across our City.
That’s nearly 1,500 film days last year alone…
Making Mississauga the second most popular City in the entire province for the film and television industry.
Last year, we welcomed CBS Stages, Canada’s first production studio branded by a major U.S. media company.
Earlier this year, we opened the doors to William F. White’s first studio in Ontario…
A month into production, Whites announced their new location was already booked solid and that they would be opening a second 180,000 square foot studio in Mississauga early next year….
Bringing our City’s total to 6 major film studios with nearly 900,000 square feet of production space…
These investments have put Mississauga on the international map for film and television and injected a newfound sense of excitement into our creative industries scene…
Generating thousands of high-skilled, high paying jobs, from lighting technicians to producers, set designers, videographers and more.
Which is good news for our economy…
And one of the reasons why Mississauga continues to outpace the province in terms of job creation, creating 19 net new jobs a day and generating roughly 60 billion in economic output each year.
While these numbers are impressive, our greatest asset is truly our people.
We are home to a high-skilled workforce, with two-thirds of our residents holding some form of a post-secondary education…
Mississauga is a mega pool of talent and a magnet for businesses looking to invest…
In Mississauga, we continue to import, not export talent.
More people come to Mississauga to work each day than leave to work elsewhere – 234,000 to be exact.
In order to continue to stay ahead of the curve and ensure that businesses can continue to scale-up and thrive, we need to build a solid talent pipeline…
Our new five-year Economic Development Strategy will ensure that we can do just that while inspiring businesses to innovate and strengthening Mississauga’s role as a dominant force in the GTA economy.
Thanks to the work of our economic development team, we are already making progress on that front…
EDO’s Focus on Talent and Building Skilled Talent Together events demonstrate that Mississauga is committed to ensuring our businesses have the talent they need to grow and succeed.
Working with CEOs from Life Sciences companies across Mississauga, we helped to create the Pharma Challenges and Opportunities Certificate, a new executive program at UTM…
Thanks to innovative partnerships like these we helpour companies expand while attracting top talent from around the world.
One being MHI Canada Aerospace, an integral partner in the growth of Mississauga’s aerospace sector, which we were pleased to support in their recent 200,000 square foot expansion…
Giving them the much-needed space to manufacture the Bombardier Global Express and Challenger programs…
And speaking of Bombardier, MHI also manufactures the fuselage for the Global series business jets, which will soon be built in Mississauga.
This global aviation heavyweight chose Mississauga to locate its new 1 million-square-foot global manufacturing centre.
Thanks to our team of dedicated staff, Bombardier’s investment will help cement our position as Canada’s largest aerospace hub and create thousands of highly-skilled and well-paid jobs.
This is just a snapshot of the nearly 100 new businesses and 3,750 highly-skilled jobs that City staff helped attract to Mississauga in just the last year alone…
This includes dozens of jobs at SodaStream, who opened their first Canadian refilling station here last year.
SodaStream’s mission is to help eliminate single-use plastics, one of the largest and most preventable sources of pollution in the world.
The fact that they decided to locate their first Canadian facility in Mississauga is not only encouraging but aligns with our City’s efforts to combat pollution and fight climate change…
Because we know that unless decisive action is taken today, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans and lakes.
This is not only concerning but deeply unsettling…
And only serves to prove that cities are not immune to the global climate crisis.
We see the effects here in Mississauga in terms of air quality, flooding, extreme heat and cold.
Decisive action is needed, now.
Our kids and grandkids deserve the same chance we did at a bright and sustainable future…
They are showing up on the steps of City Hall, demanding we act now.
This is why we took the lead in declaring a climate emergency and introduced our very own Climate Change Action plan…
The first plan of its kind will see our city invest 450 million over the next ten years to adapt our city to this new reality and help us meet our goal of reducing our emissions by 40 percent in the next decade and 80 percent by 2050…
Council and staff deserve significant recognition for their courage in supporting this plan. It will define us for generations to come.
We will take meaningful action to reduce our GHG emissions by greening our transit fleet and encouraging more people to use our growing public transit network…
Purchasing next-generation hybrid-electric buses that will help us achieve up to 25 percent fuel savings and, in the future they can be fully electrified.
We have fast tracked funding to purchase 11 new hybrid buses through this year’s budget, with plans to purchase an additional 444 buses in the coming years.
I look forward to riding our new green fleet along the Dundas and Lakeshore Road rapid transitways…
Helping break congestion and increase service and travel times east to west.
To build these two projects and purchase the buses, it is critical that the provincial and federal governments join us to invest $847 million over the next decade to support transit and transportation infrastructure
To build a healthy, vibrant city requires all three levels of government to work together.
City building is nation-building.
Our ability to achieve our sustainability goals will rely on us successfully shedding car culture and truly embracing transit.
70 percent of trips into, out of, and around Mississauga are done in cars or other vehicles.
Cars are a big source of GHG emissions, but also the cause of traffic and congestion.
Put up your hand if you hate traffic.
Now, put up your hand if you think you are the traffic.
If we are going to truly embrace transit like other global cities do and break congestion, we must get more people out of their cars and onto transit and other modes of transportation.
The time is now…
Moving forward,we will continue to make transit convenient and accessible.
This year alone, we are adding 32,600 hours of transit service.
This brings the total additional service to over 180,000 hours over the last five years.
Our Mississauga Moves Transportation Plan is working
We will implement more express routes, including a dedicated all-day bus to the airport, serving many of the 50,000 workers and travellers at Toronto Pearson.
Thanks to our new Smart City Master Plan, we are encouraging more people to hop on the bus by using technology as a force for good…
By making transit more accessible and enhancing rider experience, piloting free Wi-Fi on city buses…
With plans to expand free Wi-Fi throughout our entire network, including at bus stops and surrounding city facilities.
You will be able to watch “The Office” on your way to the office.
While we enhance local service, we are also focused on large-scale, transformational transit projects that will change the face of our City.
The biggest being the Hurontario LRT, a 4.6 billion dollar investment and the largest infrastructure project in our City’s history…
The LRT will form the north-south spine of our regional transit network connecting millions of people a year to Mississauga and beyond.
I cannot underscore the importance of this project for the future prosperity of our city or the efforts that went into sealing the deal for full funding with the province.
While we had a campaign commitment from Premier Ford to move forward with the LRT, we needed the government to put pen to paper…
There wasn’t a meeting I attended, whether it was with the Premier, the Minister of Transportation or local MPPs, where I didn’t promote the fact that the LRT will move up to 31 million passengers a year and, in the next 20, will support over a quarter of all employment in Mississauga.
That’s 220,000 people, 128,000 jobs and 12,000 new residential units …
Simply put, the LRT is critical to the future of our city…
And, it is because of the advocacy efforts of Council and City staff that the LRT is moving full steam ahead…
With major construction starting this spring, we are ready to get moving.
The LRT is just one of the many transformative projects happening in our downtown.
In the next decade, downtown Mississauga will become a booming metropolis, a hub of activity, business, culture and innovation.
It will quickly become the envy of the GTA and a model which other cities will seek to replicate.
It’s hard to believe, but in the next 20 years, the population of our downtown will double from 30,000 to 60,000 people.
All of these people will need a place to live and work.
As a City, we have been intentional in our efforts to build a vibrant, sustainable downtown that is a hub for economic development, culture and entertainment.
A place to live, shop, work and seamlessly connect to transit and travel across our City and beyond.
We have already started to lay the strong foundation needed to bring our vision to life.
Shovels are already in the ground and construction is underway on several new residential buildings, including the first two M City condos, which will define the western edge of our skyline with their iconic, twisting towers.
Less than two months ago, Oxford Properties announced the Square One District, the largest mixed-use development in Canadian history in the heart of downtown. It will see up to 37 new buildings and three million square feet of office space that will define our downtown for decades to come.
When this development is complete, it alone will house 35,000 people and create 35,000 jobs.
Up, not out.
Smart growth.
Fewer cars.
Less congestion and air pollution.
More transit, mobility, accessibility, green spaces, bike lanes, office space, business, jobs and opportunity…
What were once renderings and master plans are starting to come to life…
We are truly embracing our urban shift.
This change is not limited just to the downtown…
To the south along the waterfront, we have approved two master-planned waterfront communities, Lakeview to the east and Brightwater to the west, which will encompass residential, commercial, recreation, entertainment, culture and innovation all in one location …
Revitalizing and reanimating our waterfront, making it an international destination…
These complete, sustainable communities will serve as hubs for innovation, culture and tourism, putting our waterfront and our City on the map.
Few other cities in the world are developing nearly 250 acres on their waterfront into cutting-edge, complete communities.
The potential of these developments is enormous and cannot be underestimated.
Equally as important is ensuring that our waterfront remains accessible to the public.
Thanks to the vision and commitment of former Councillor Tovey, Credit Valley Conservation and partners have made significant progress in their efforts to transform industrial lands into a green oasis along the eastern shores of Lake Ontario.
Ensuring our waterfront remains accessible, connected and vibrant for generations to come at the Jim Tovey Lakeview Conservation Area.
We will also continue to work with developers to prioritize waterfront access while making progress on our 25-year waterfront parks strategy…
To further reclaim our waterfront and seamlessly connect existing and new parks along our 22 kilometres of Lake Ontario…
We have also taken steps to keep the “port” in Port Credit by making the public marina a Council approved priority.
Again, we cannot do this alone. We need our federal and provincial partners to make this happen.
Our goal is to bring people to the water and the water to the people.
As we work to transform Mississauga into a dynamic, thriving world-class city with boundless opportunity, we maintain our commitment to making smart decisions to manage growth responsibly and sustainably.
We can’t afford not to.
Servicing low density development costs nearly three times more per household per year than embracing density.
It puts added pressures on our ability to deliver services.
And while developments like the Square One District, M City, Lakeview and Brightwater will help us meet our growth targets and address the need for market-rental housing and office space, we realize that more needs to be done to help solve the housing affordability crisis sweeping the GTHA.
Affordability, more specifically housing prices and the cost of living, are key to attracting new businesses and building a healthy, prosperous city.
The reality is that precarious employment is rising, and wages aren’t keeping pace with the cost of living.
As we continue to grow and prosper as a City, it is important that we do not leave anyone behind.
Affordability is the number one issue I hear about from residents
We need to ensure that Mississauga stays within reach and that people can afford to live and work here.
This impacts our residents, who are your employees.
We have a plan, but to make it a reality we require assistance from the provincial and federal governments.
We need changes to legislation and more funding to bring more affordable housing to the market.
The population of the GTA is expected to double in the years to come, only putting further pressure on an oversubscribed housing market.
The good news is that vacancy rates in Mississauga for rental units have increased from 0.8 percent to 1.2 percent – the first increase in six years.
We’re getting closer to that healthy 3 percent number, but to make that happen, we need to get more supply to help service the growing demand.
For our City to thrive, people must have a safe, affordable place to live.
Safe, affordable housing is the key to unlocking the potential of our city, our people, and our businesses.
Housing is the launching pad for life.
Housing also is also a critical component in our efforts to tackle the root causes of crime.
While Mississauga remains one of the safest cities in Canada, we have seen a spike in gun and gang activity in the past few years.
As Mayor, my top priority is to ensure that, first and foremost, residents feel safe.
While crime rates continue to decline, gun crime has increased.
This must be addressed.
We are seeing more and more kids, some as young as 13 years old, being recruited into gangs and turning to guns to resolve their conflicts…
We need to take action to tackle guns and gangs head-on, through changes in bail rules, tougher border control to crack down on illegal guns entering Canada, amending the criminal code to make sentencing tougher for gun crimes, and giving police the resources they need to do their jobs effectively.
Much of this requires action and funding from the federal and provincial governments and I urge our local MPs and MPPs to join me in tackling this issue head on.
Gun crime is a symptom of a much larger illness.
We need to do more to invest in housing, poverty reduction, and youth opportunity to give our youth a chance at a better life and avoid a life of crime.
We know the issues.
We’re doing our part at the City and Region by increasing this year’s police budget to get an additional 35 uniformed officers on the ground…
But again, we need our federal and provincial governments to join us in making targeted investments, including a dedicated Guns and Gangs Unit for Peel.
Only by working together will we ensure our City remains one of the best places to live in the world.
A place where everyone can succeed and where no-one is left behind.
I want to thank our new Police Chief, Nish Duraiappah for joining us today and for supporting our efforts to ensure Mississauga remains a safe city.
People are starting to look at Mississauga differently, as an established, growing urban city.
As Missisauga grows we are facing the same pressures as established, urban cities around the world.
As we grow, we will continue to maintain our commitment to excellence while working to keep money in your pocket.
We will do this by cutting red tape and running a tight a stable ship…
We will continue to identify efficiencies to save you time and money.
In fact, in just a little over a decade, we have saved taxpayers over 57 million dollars and this year alone, identified an additional 2.4 million in savings.
That is money back in your pocket.
We will continue to train and empower our staff to find efficiencies and think differently about how we do business.
Like any other business, we will make smart decisions, focus on continuous improvement and take calculated risks, all while keeping an eye on the future…
In Mississauga, we have all the right ingredients in place to remain a competitive business destination for generations to come.
Our past shapes us and defines us, but it does not hold us back.
I am not nostalgic about a better time, because I know the best is yet to come.
We are approaching 50 years old with a unique value proposition.
We are coming of age.
We are undergoing an urban renaissance.
We are ambitious.
We are motivated.
We stand apart from other municipalities in our approach to business.
Mississauga is gaining global recognition around the world.
As a city that piques curiosity…
A diverse city with a strong sense of identity…
A healthy city that encourages people to get out and explore…
A city with a rich heritage and vibrant culture…
A city that welcomes new Canadians with open arms and celebrates their backgrounds, cultures and faiths…
A digitally connected, smart city that is prepared for the future…
A city where innovation and businesses thrive and, most importantly, a place where people chose to be and where they want to live, work and raise a family.
This room today is filled with business and community leaders, first responders, academics and fellow politicians….
You are all ambassadors for our city…
And, you are tapped into all the incredible things happening…
I ask that you join me in challenging the world to see Mississauga differently.
Tell the world.
As we look at the year ahead and beyond, I know there is more to do and more to achieve.
Our work never stops to build a more prosperous, sustainable and forward-thinking city.
We are so proud of our past, which makes us so faithful that our future will be bright.
There is so much to look forward to in our 2020s and beyond…
Together, we will ensure that Mississauga remains one of the most sought after cities in the world…
And, we will continue to shine bright as a beacon for hope, opportunity, tolerance and prosperity.
No matter where you are in the world, people will know Mississauga by name.
Friends, the greatest part is… the best is yet to come.
Thank you.”
Media Contact:
Nicole McInerney, Communications Supervisor
nicole.mcinerney@mississauga.ca