Here’s Who is Running in Mississauga Municipal Election (Part 1)

The municipal election campaigning period began on May 1, which is when candidates could start registering to run in the October election. Once someone puts down their filing fee and 25 signatures endorsing your candidacy, they can start raising money and campaigning as a candidate.

For this year’s municipal election cycle, there are three periods to take note of when it come to finding out who is running: on May 1, where there is much fanfare over being “the first out of the gate”, after the June 7 provincial election (where there could be former MPPs and candidates looking to run for municipal office), and the last day to register on July 27 at 2 pm, where there is the possibility of a last minute scramble of candidates signing up.

This will be a three part series taking stock into who has registered to run as a municipal candidate in Peel Region. For this first part, this is profiling the candidates that have registered for the month of May.

Mayor Bonnie Crombie wasted little time in getting herself out of the gate, registering on May 1 and putting out this campaign video. So far, her only challenger is Kevin Jackal Johnston, who ran in 2014, but last year was charged with wilful promotion of hatred by Peel Regional Police for various incidents involving allegedly discriminatory words and actions towards members of the Muslim community.

Eight incumbent city councillors have registered to run for reelection. One interesting fact about Ward 8 Coun. Matt Mahoney is that if he wins reelection in October, it will mark almost 40 years that a Mahoney has represented that ward uninterrupted on Mississauga council.

Matt’s father, Steve Mahoney, was the councillor from 1978 to 1987, then his mother Katie served from 1991 to 2014, when Matt was elected. Only during 1988 to 1991, when Steve Mahoney’s former executive assistant Donna Lane was the councillor did a Mahoney not represent Ward 8 on Mississauga city council.

There were also several non-incumbents signing up to run, including but not limited to:

• Stephen Dasko (Ward 1): Chief Operating Officer of ASI Technologies and self described community advocate; also a board member of Community Living Mississauga.

• Miles Roque (Ward 1): a planning manager with a company called Canadian Solar Inc. who studied at University of Toronto Mississauga and Ryerson University.

• Joe Horneck (Ward 6): a banking professional currently with MUFG and formerly with BMO, Horneck is perhaps best known for running previously for Mississauga council in the 2015 Ward 4 by-election, coming in third. He was involved with the Western GTA Summit and has advocated on transit issues.

• Gary Gu (Ward 6): an IT professional and a former president of the Mississauga Mandarin Association.

• Andrew Gassmann (Ward 7): President of the Cooksville-Munden Park Homeowners Association.

• Mazin Al-Ezzi (Ward 10): a self-described “investment specialist” who emigrated to Canada from Iraq.

The open ward races are in Ward 1, where interim councillor Dave Cook is only serving out the remainder of the term left vacant by the late Jim Tovey, Ward 6, where incumbent Ron Starr is running for Peel Regional Chair, and in Ward 7, where incumbent Nando Iannicca is retiring after 30 years on council.

In the races for Peel District School Board, the only incumbent trustees to have registered so far are Nokha Dakroub, Robert Crocker and Brad MacDonald.

As for the Catholic school board, what is noticeable is several individuals with the same surnames are running. There are two Pascuccis and two people named Thomas running (one of them is literally named ‘Thomas Thomas’).

For an up to the minute list of those who are running, you can follow my own Twitter feed on updates as to who signed up to run in Mississauga as well as the links below:

Mississauga municipal election candidates list and Peel Regional Chair election candidates list.

Municipal elections take place on October 22.