In the run-up to this month’s municipal election, the Star is profiling several key battleground races, offering intimate portraits of the candidates and the issues moving voters.
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Star → profile → voters
The Mississauga mayoral race has been a winding Shakespearean tale featuring a 15-year rivalry, a possibly hubristic return, a debate stage duel, the sudden emergence of a dark horse and the looming presence of a ghost.
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race → wind → ghost
There is incumbent Carolyn Parrish, who realized her decades-old dream of becoming mayor when then-mayor Bonnie Crombie quit to become Ontario Liberal leader.
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Crombie → be → mayor
There is Crombie, who succeeded the inimitable Hazel McCallion after her 36-year tenure, won her third mayoral election in a landslide and is invoking McCallion’s name to do so again in a high-stakes comeback following her failed bid to oust Premier Doug Ford.
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who → be → Ford
And, inching closer in the nailbitingly tight polls, is Alvin Tedjo, a rookie councillor who grew up in downtown Mississauga where his Chinese-Indonesian parents settled when he was four.
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he → inch → Mississauga
Tedjo started the race polling behind his council colleague Dipika Damerla, but now seems to have swept past her and into the role of the generational change candidate.
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Tedjo → start → candidate
“I think it’s very fluid,” said Councillor Brad Butt (a Parrish supporter) of the race.
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Butt → think → race
“I just don’t know what the ballot question is going to be when people actually get there for the mayoral race.”
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people → know → race
In 2023, Carolyn Parrish signed herself and her husband up for provincial Liberal memberships and voted for Bonnie Crombie to win the leadership.
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Crombie → sign → leadership
“To get rid of her,” she said, cracking a smile, because she knows this is just the kind of comment she shouldn’t make.
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she → rid → comment
“I wanted the job.”
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I → want → job
Before entering the council chamber, Parrish was a teacher turned school trustee turned Liberal MP turned independent MP, infamous for her barbs about George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq that included the hot mic comment: “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards!”
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I → enter → bastards
When she left Ottawa in 2005, there was speculation that she’d take a run at the mayor’s chair when McCallion decided to retire — it turned out that would still be almost 20 years away.
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that → leave → chair
In the meantime, Parrish was elected to council and became McCallion’s chief antagonist.
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Parrish → elect → council
Parrish lost to a McCallion-backed challenger in 2010 and so went head-to-head with Crombie for the first time in a 2011 byelection for Ward 5.
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Parrish → lose → Ward
“Mayor is the dream job, no question,” said Parrish from her office overlooking the city.
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Parrish → say → city
But when McCallion finally retired in 2014, Parrish decided not to enter the race for mayor.
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Parrish → retire → mayor
Instead, she set her sights on the council seat left vacant by Crombie who was running for mayor against Steve Mahoney.
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who → set → Mahoney
“Bonnie had been here and was kind of following Hazel around carrying her purse.
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Bonnie → follow → purse
So I just looked at it and thought, nah, I just want to be a councillor.
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I → look → it
I was happy,” Parrish said.
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Parrish → say → ?
Crombie won the battle for mayor with a last-minute endorsement from McCallion, and Parrish became a councillor.
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Parrish → win → McCallion
“I was kind of like the mayor of Malton,” she said, citing one of her proudest achievements: the Malton youth hub that she is pushing to replicate elsewhere in the city.
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she → say → city
Then Crombie, who easily won her third term as mayor in 2022, decided to run for Liberal leader.
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who → win → leader
Parrish, then 77, seized her moment, resigning her council seat to dedicate herself to winning the mayoral byelection.
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Parrish → seize → byelection
She became mayor in 2024, beating Tedjo who came in second.
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who → become → Tedjo
Through the campaign Parrish has periodically posted on X a CP24 clip from her mayoral election night victory where Crombie hugs Parrish, and then steps out in front of her to the TV cameras to say she will be a “formidable mayor.”
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she → post → cameras
But there is more to it than just cheekily pointing out the praise: Crombie stepped into her spotlight and stayed there.
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Crombie → be → spotlight
“It annoyed the hell out of me at the time.
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It → annoy → time
It really annoyed my family.
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It → annoy → family
It’s OK, I was out with the crowd and having a great time.
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I → ’ → time
But every once in a while I put it on because she’s saying terrible things about me,” said Parrish.
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Parrish → put → me
“It’s the bad part of me.”
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It → ’ → me
When she finally became mayor she set about doing the things she’d wanted to for a long time: getting housing built faster and bringing in snow windrow clearing.
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housing → become → clearing
A next term would focus on her plan to transform downtown Mississauga.
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term → focus → Mississauga
Moreover, she said, she has a handshake deal with Premier Doug Ford (unconfirmed by him at this time) that he will fix the Peel police funding formula, convincing him with a chart (reproduced in her latest election pamphlet that she wrote herself on her phone) that shows it unfairly leaves Mississauga taxpayers subsidizing Brampton.
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it → say → Brampton
Ford is rooting for her to win, she said, though she wishes he wouldn’t have joked that he’d send an army to support her against Crombie.
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he → root → Crombie
There is, Parrish stresses, no army.
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Parrish → be → ?
She’s been campaigning mostly as she always has in diverse Mississauga: “I’ve built good relationships with a lot of the ethnic groups and I just keep going with them.”
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I → campaign → them
Parrish, who proudly displays photos of her five grandchildren in her office, just turned 80 and maintains her age shouldn’t be a concern to voters — she’s not even ruling out another term if she’s still got work to do.
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she → display → work
…and 64 more, not listed.
The Aporia
