When Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish resigned from a regional police board, citing the have to be overtly essential of the most important funds enhance within the power’s historical past, her resolution took many without warning.
However to those that’ve recognized her lengthy sufficient, that is how the 78-year-old former member of Parliament has all the time approached politics –outspoken, daring and generally controversial.
After quitting the Peel Police Providers Board final fall, Parrish stated the $144-million enhance to the police funds – 62 per cent of which is roofed by Mississauga taxpayers – was “unreasonable.”
“The explanation I needed to give up is it’s important to signal a pledge once you go on the police companies board by no means to disagree with a call made on the board – publicly,” she stated in an interview in her workplace final month. “I had no alternative however to resign.”
The bizarre transfer has been one of many hallmarks of her early mayorship.
Parrish was elected to guide Canada’s seventh largest metropolis in a June 2024 byelection, succeeding Bonnie Crombie who had resigned to run for management of the Ontario Liberal Occasion.
Parrish, a former highschool trainer, first grew to become serious about politics 40 years in the past after a “head-to-head” along with her youngsters’s faculty principal motivated her to begin attending Peel District Faculty Board conferences, and ultimately grow to be a board trustee in 1985.
She was elected to the Home of Commons as a Liberal in 1993 and left federal politics greater than a decade later as an unbiased, after getting kicked out of the Liberal caucus over her anti-American remarks throughout the invasion of Iraq and criticism of her personal celebration and then-prime minister Paul Martin.
Parrish then served on Mississauga’s metropolis council for years earlier than successful the mayoral race.
She stated 4 a long time in politics isn’t sufficient for her, as she gears as much as run for a full time period as mayor in 2026.
“I’ve plenty of issues I wish to end,” she stated.
A number of the issues she has completed to date, and the best way she did that, have attracted consideration.
On the marketing campaign path, Parrish stated that she would attempt to keep away from utilizing the so-called robust mayor powers – a provincially granted authority that enables mayors to override bylaws and fireplace and rent division heads, amongst different strikes.
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Nevertheless, she used the powers a number of instances in her first week in workplace, which included firing the town’s chief administrative officer and hiring interim leaders of sure departments.
Parrish stated she reinstated the ability to make hiring and firing choices again to the brand new CAO, Geoff Wright, after he was made everlasting.
Mississauga, a metropolis of round 800,000 folks simply west of Toronto, is combating a housing disaster, rising value of residing, property tax will increase and worsening site visitors congestion. Parrish stated one in 13 Mississauga residents used meals banks final 12 months.
“It’s a huge drawback. It’s a hidden drawback.”
One of many first strikes she made as mayor was to type a housing process power, with enter from the Larger Toronto Space’s high builders, to hurry up house constructing.
Mississauga council has permitted the duty power’s suggestions, which embody decreasing growth fees, remodeling zoning, and updating constructing and design requirements – with the objective of constructing greater than 124,000 new housing items.
“I’m actually pleased with it,” Parrish stated of the initiative.
Earlier than council voted on the difficulty, she stated she was ready to make use of her robust mayor powers once more to push the suggestions by means of.
“Carolyn Parrish has been, I believe, the identical individual she has been all through her political profession,” stated Mississauga councillor Alvin Tedjo, who ran towards Parrish within the mayoral race.
“She is outspoken, she has robust opinions and she or he desires to get issues performed.”
Simply because it did on Parliament Hill 20 years in the past, Parrish’s outspokenness has courted controversy in her new function.
Final November, she drew sharp criticism for mentioning Nelson Mandela as she spoke about Hamas militant chief Yahya Sinwar, who was killed within the Gaza Strip.
“Your terrorist and any individual else’s terrorist could also be two various things,” she stated at a council assembly in response to considerations raised over a deliberate vigil for Sinwar at Mississauga’s Celebration Sq., which was in the end cancelled by the organizers.
Parrish had additionally stated the group planning the occasion had the appropriate to freedom of expression and peaceable meeting.
She denies that she meant to match Mandela and Sinwar, however critics say that’s how most individuals interpreted her feedback.
“Mississauga is a really various place and we’ve got to watch out with our phrases,” Tedjo stated in an interview. “The comparability itself, I don’t assume, is justifiable.”
However Parrish stated her feedback have been knowledgeable by her years of expertise as an MP, when she made visits to Israel and Gaza.
Tedjo, who had promised he would freeze property taxes for 2 years when he ran in final 12 months’s mayoral race, was amongst three Mississauga councillors who voted in favour of the 23.3 per cent funds enhance for Peel police. It was an unprecedented hike permitted by Peel regional council after hours of heated debate in late January.
Parrish stated it was “fairly devastating” to see members of her personal council had joined “the opposite staff in the course of battle.” She stated she had pushed for a smaller police funds hike of 14 or 18 per cent, to no avail.
Parrish stated the brand new value of policing will elevate property taxes in Mississauga by a further six per cent – with out producing higher ends in tackling crime.
“The impression on our taxpayers goes to be horrendous,” she stated.
However Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, who sits on the Peel Police Providers Board, has argued that public security outweighs considerations over tax hikes.
Police want extra officers and sources to deal with rising crime charges within the area, significantly intimate accomplice violence, Brown advised a latest regional council assembly.
A number of different members of the Peel police board didn’t reply to requests for remark from The Canadian Press.
Parrish could have misplaced her battle over policing prices, however she warned that doesn’t imply the battle is over.
She stated her subsequent transfer can be to work with the province to verify her metropolis’s tax {dollars} are spent transparently by the police.
“The entire technique of police budgets has to alter, there’s an excessive amount of secrecy,” she stated.
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