MAYORAL RACE: Parrish says her ‘experience, energy and desire’ make her right choice to lead Mississauga

Carolyn Parrish says Mississauga is a “great city” that could do with a few improvements here and there to take it to the next level.

And the veteran politician, who has served on Mississauga city council for 13 years in addition to the same amount of time spent as an MP in Ottawa, figures she’s the one who can get that job done.

“I think we have a great city; it just needs a little tweaking,” Parrish, one of 20 candidates in Mississauga’s mayoral byelection seeking to succeed Bonnie Crombie, told insauga.com publisher Khaled Iwamura in an interview (see below) in advance of the June 10 byelection.

“I’ve got the experience, I’ve got the energy, I’ve got the desire. And I’m perfectly well-qualified to take this job on the first day I’m there,” she added, noting a strong work ethic is also part of her makeup. “I have a solid platform, I have solutions to problems rather than just pointing out what the problems are and I love our city.”

Atop Parrish’s list of priorities should she become the seventh mayor in Mississauga’s history is addressing the affordable housing crisis, which she views as the city’s “biggest weakness” and an issue that’s centre stage across Canada.

“We’ve lost 40,000 residents since the last census; we’re the only GTA city that lost people,” she said, attributing the population decline in the country’s seventh-largest city directly to a lack of housing options.

Parrish said, if elected, she’ll hit the ground running on the affordable housing matter and create a panel of experts, including builders and developers, that will meet monthly to find solutions and speed up the building of affordable units.

Push for expanded GO train service

Next on her list, she noted, are matters related to public transit and crime — specifically, as far as the latter is concerned, the dramatic increase in car thefts in Mississauga in recent years.

With respect to transit, Parrish said the $4.6-billion Hazel McCallion Line is progressing and will provide a key north-south route for commuters when it opens next year. The line is a light-rail transit route that’ll whisk passengers from Port Credit GO in the city’s south end all the way north along Hurontario Street into Brampton.

The city still needs a similar east-west route, the mayoral candidate added, and expanding the Milton GO line to all-day, two-way service from west of Mississauga, through the city’s north and central sections and into Toronto is also of great importance.

“That’s been talked about for years,” said Parrish, referring to enhancements to the Milton GO line. She added senior levels of government “keep flipping on us” — first Ottawa had the cash ready to put on the table for the massive project, but not the province, and more recently the opposite appears to be the case, she explained.

“So we’re going to have to work on that,” she promised.

Bold car thieves pose threat to residents

Meanwhile, a growing crime concern in the city the past number of years is a dramatic rise in the number of auto thefts and sometimes violent carjackings, said the former Ward 5 councillor (she resigned the seat in March to run for mayor).

In many cases, car thieves are coming right to people’s homes in the middle of the night and stealing SUVs and other luxury vehicles from driveways.

Other times, carjackers threaten motorists with violence and steal their vehicles as they’re getting into and out of their car at store parking lots or pumping gas at a service station.

Stolen cars are then quickly moved out of Mississauga and in many cases to Montreal for shipment overseas to “a ready market” in the Middle East and/or Africa.

“Car thefts have been a big issue. They’ve caused people to be very insecure, very concerned about their safety and their property,” said Parrish, adding as mayor she’d continue to push Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal government for more anti-car theft measures.

A Canada-wide plan to fight auto theft unveiled last month by Ottawa includes, among other things, stricter penalties for car crooks and scanners to check overseas-bound shipping containers for stolen cars.

Parrish stressed the beefed-up scanning measures are crucial as it’s currently too easy for organized car theft groups to quickly load vehicles onto ships and get them to illegal markets in other parts of the world.

Fair funding for Mississauga and its Peel partners

One other task, in particular, the longtime politician doesn’t want to get lost in the shuffle is that of continuing to pressure the provincial government for fair funding for social services in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, Peel’s member municipalities.

Parrish said Peel has been chronically underfunded on that front for decades and, if elected, she’ll push to have the province “finally ante up our fair share of money for social programs.

“We are really short-changed; we have been for many years,” she said, adding she’s prepared to get together with Brampton and Caledon mayors and “march down to Queen’s Park and say we want our fair share finally. We want our people cared for properly.”

Citing Mississauga’s diversity as a great strength where, for the most part, “everybody gets along,” Parrish said the city is ready to take the next step and meet the needs of all residents.

She wants to keep the city as strong and diverse as it is “and try to make it a better place for people who require housing and are fighting with the cost of living.”