Mississauga Councillor Sue McFadden announces bid to run for federal Conservatives

There could be further changes around Mississauga City Hall as Councillor Sue McFadden announces she will be attempting to make the jump to Ottawa to join Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party.  

In a February 25 press release, the Conservative Party of Canada announced McFadden, Mississauga’s Ward 10 councillor, as the candidate for Mississauga—Streetsville for the next federal election.  

“Life has become unaffordable for too many Canadians and crime and chaos are common in our streets because of Justin Trudeau’s reckless policies,” reads a statement from McFadden on the Party’s website. “I hear from my constituents regularly about how hard life has become over the last 8 years, which is why I feel motivated to help make a change at the federal level.” 

“I believe in Pierre Poilievre’s leadership and his common sense plan to axe the carbon tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.” 

As a seasoned politician and a well-known name in Mississauga, having been on City Council since 2006 and school board trustee for six years before that, McFadden’s shift into federal politics could alter the dynamics of the Mississauga—Streetsville riding, which has leaned Liberal since 2015. All six Mississauga federal ridings have been held by Liberal representatives for nearly the last decade, with party candidates maintaining their grip on local ridings in the last three consecutive federal elections. 

Setting the stage for a contentious campaign, McFadden will be challenging incumbent Liberal MP Rechie Valdez, a first-term MP elected to the House of Commons in the 2021 federal election.  

Now in her fifth term, McFadden is the second member of council to vie for a political upgrade after Mississauga’s long-time mayor Bonnie Crombie made the transition to provincial politics in December following her appointment as the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. As The Pointer previously reported, unlike provincial and federal elections that require candidates to resign from their seats to run for a municipal position, there is no requirement under the Municipal Act for local officials fighting to climb the political ladder to resign, allowing elected officials in a lower tier of government to retain their seat while they run for higher office. 

Sue McFadden is the second member of City Council to fight for a political upgrade after Bonnie Crombie departed in January to lead the Ontario Liberal Party.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer) 

Her departure would be the latest shuffle for Mississauga City Council, following Crombie’s leave and the anticipated resignation of Ward 5’s Carolyn Parrish who has signalled her intentions to step down as of March 15 in her bid to run in the upcoming byelection for the mayor’s chair, leaving the Ward 5 position vacant for a new member to join council.

McFadden previously co-chaired the City’s now defunct Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (DIAC), which has since been reestablished as the Combating Racism, Discrimination and Hatred Advisory Committee, where she has been candid about the committee’s failings to fulfill its mandate. In 2021, when a report to the Region revealed staff were under-hiring visible minorities, McFadden admitted that the lived experiences rooted in other places end up becoming a problem in Peel because the staff hired to represent the community do not reflect them. 

Representing a large part of Mississauga that has seen massive growth and a huge demographic shift since she was first elected in 2006, McFadden previously acknowledged to The Pointer, “I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I can tell you, [the region] has changed dramatically. We have to change, each municipality and the Region.”

But the Ward 10 Councillor has also found herself under the microscope for being largely silent on issues of equity and inclusion that for years sat on the back burner, before coming to the surface. In 2020 McFadden brought forward a vague motion that led many to speculate there would be a push to stop the temporary broadcasting of the Azan, the Muslim call to prayer, during Ramadan, despite thousands of residents in her own Ward who identify as Muslims. Ahead of the debate, she assured the purpose of the motion was to have a wider discussion around the topic, not to put a halt to the Azan. In the end, the motion was withdrawn.  

At the time, she acknowledged there was a disconnect, adding she was hopeful DIAC could “meet more regularly [in the future] so things like this don’t fall through the cracks.” She noted no substantive meetings had taken place since 2018 (McFadden was named co-chair alongside former councillor Ron Starr in 2019). When previously asked by The Pointer if the committee was fulfilling its mandate to reflect Canada’s sixth largest city, McFadden said, six years in, it was just getting started.  

Her move to join Canada’s highest order of government leaves Mississauga in a deeper state of uncertainty with the possibility of more than one byelection already on the horizon for 2024 as members of City Council duel for new job titles. The restructuring comes as Mississaugal prepares to take on a set of new services — including planning, waste management, major roads and all water utilities — as part of the new mandate of the Province’s Transition Board, while also battling the PC’s on the municipalities housing starts as it prepares for the future growth anticipated to flow into Mississauga. 

McFadden’s political fate will, at the latest, be decided when Canadians go to the polls for the next federal election in October 2025. However, should Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal minority government fail to maintain its support from the NDP, the election could happen sooner. 

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock

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