Mississauga councillor says he will run for mayor after proposal for ‘tax holiday’ slammed as ‘pre-election gimmick’

Ward 2 Councillor Alvin Tedjo at Newstalk 1010 on Thursday morning, confirming he will run for Mississauga mayor.

A Mississauga city councillor has confirmed that he will run for mayor, one day after incumbent Carolyn Parrish slammed his proposal for a “property tax holiday” as a a “pre-election gimmick.”

Ward 2 Councillor Alvin Tedjo made the announcement on Newstalk 1010 on Thursday morning, telling host John Moore that he intended to add his name to the ballot as soon as the registration window opens on Friday.

“We need to focus on Mississauga becoming a big city and not just a city suburb of Toronto. We are almost 800,000 people, we have 100,000 businesses,” Tedjo said. “We have so many families who are trying to get by and we need to be focused on the future and how do we build that. We need a vision that is long term, that is going to be focused on how to make the city more affordable and more livable and this current mayor doesn’t have it.”

Tedjo put forward a motion to Mississauga City Council on Wednesday that proposed waiving late fees and interest charges for all taxpayers for a three-month period in response to the surging oil prices and rising inflation being faced by many residents amid the conflict in Iran.

His motion noted that in 2025 Mississauga collected $25 million in property tax late fees, which was more than double what was expected.

His motion, however, ultimately failed following a 6-6 vote by Mississauga City Council on Wednesday night.

In a statement, Parrish said the proposal was essentially a “tax penalty holiday” for the four per cent of residents who “don’t pay their taxes on time.”

“Sixty-three per cent of what the city collects is transferred to Peel Region and education. It must be paid on time,” she explained. “If it is not paid on time, Mississauga must borrow the money ($640M), with interest added to the city’s budget.”

Tedjo told Newstalk 1010 on Thursday that his motion for a “property tax holiday” was about “giving people a break” and “making life more affordable for Mississauga residents.”

He said Parrish’s decision to vote against the proposal is one of the reasons he “thinks we need a new mayor that is going to fight for affordability for residents in Mississauga.”

“The city has good cash flow, they could do this,” he said of the tax holiday. “We shouldn’t be making more money than we plan to make because people are struggling. And we saw that twice as many people as we had planned actually need tax relief because they couldn’t pay their property taxes (last year).”

Parrish, for her part, said the move could have carried steep financial consequences for Mississauga, as “there is no way of knowing” how many residents would take advantage of the program and how many millions of dollars the city “would have to borrow to transfer taxes to the region and to school boards.”

“This motion was a pre-election gimmick,” Parrish said. “It failed.”

Tedjo also ran in the 2024 Mississauga mayoral byelection where he finished second to Parrish. Parrish beat Tedjo by about 8,000 votes in that election.

Mississauga’s municipal election will be held on Oct. 26.