Mississauga’s waterfront is a prime example of the need for federal infrastructure funding

On April 1, Mark Carney, the Liberal leader and occasional Prime Minister, officially ended the consumer carbon tax, and Canadians celebrated a sharp drop at the gas pump.

A little known consequence of the decision was the impact on the Canada Community-Building Fund, a federal program in place for two decades that used revenues from the “gas tax” to help municipalities pay for critical infrastructure, from transit projects to community pools and tens of thousands of local initiatives in between. 

It is estimated by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) that the current infrastructure deficit facing the country's towns and cities is more than $150 billion. 

Two years ago, the national organization representing more than 2,100 municipalities across the country, estimated that the cost of required infrastructure for the new homes needed across Canada is $600 billion, about $107,000 per home to pay for roads, stormwater and sewer systems, transit, climate adaptation, policing and fire services, recreational facilities, waste management systems and a range of other local amenities. 

In our new reality, with governments cutting off revenues desperately needed to fund all these required pieces of local infrastructure, to combat the affordability crisis, the dilemma is: how will cities pay for current needs, on top of the future costs of inevitable growth?

The communities that surround Mississauga’s Lake Ontario shoreline serve as a prime example of the challenge facing municipalities across Canada. 

Massive development projects to accommodate growth driven largely by federal immigration policy and provincial housing targets are rising rapidly across the city’s southern edge. 

Brightwater, just west of Port Credit Marina, is one of the massive development projects that will require hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure investments.

(experiencebrightwater.ca)

The riding of Mississauga—Lakeshore, home to approximately 117,095 residents, is a perfect illustration of the challenges facing communities dealing with intense growth pressures, without adequate infrastructure funding to provide future residents all the services and amenities they will need. Large scale developments including Lakeview Village, Brightwater and Rangeview are completely reshaping the riding.

But local candidates have not put forward any clear strategy for how the much needed infrastructure along Mississauga’s rapidly developing waterfront will be funded. City Hall has made it clear: it is not in a good financial position to fund required infrastructure on the backs of local property tax payers—council recently rejected a request for funding assistance for the city’s new hospital, and has asked Queen’s Park for additional support to fund the City’s share of future operating costs for the Hurontario LRT, which is under construction.

During an event at Port Credit’s Clarke Memorial Hall Friday evening, candidates were questioned about how they would work at the local level to advocate for funding from the federal government to provide the infrastructure necessary to accommodate the surge of new units anticipated in Mississauga’s waterfront over the next decade. 

Liberal candidate and incumbent Charles Sousa was in attendance, alongside the NDP’s Evelyn Butler and Green Party candidate Mary Kidnew. Conservative Party candidate Tom Ellard did not show up and has been unresponsive to media requests from The Pointer throughout the election campaign.

Mississauga—Lakeshore is home to some of the city’s largest development projects. Ward 1, which makes up a large part of the riding, currently has 15 active development applications, according to the City’s website, marking the highest number of proposals in the city with tens of thousands of new residential units anticipated. Based on the City’s Official Plan, Mississauga’s development portal also estimates more than 35,000 potential new residential units could be built within the Lakeview Major Node alone, toward the eastern end of the riding.

Mississauga’s Lakeview Village will welcome some 40,000 new residents.

(Lakeview Community Partners) 

Getting the Lakeview Village project off the ground to transform the former Lakeview power plant site into a mixed-use waterfront community to create a “green oasis” was one of Sousa’s biggest commitments during his time as an MPP representing the area. The federal Liberal incumbent previously said he wanted a waterfront that was “much better” than Toronto’s, attracting residents from across Mississauga and the surrounding area. 

During Friday’s event, Sousa, who made his name in politics as a provincial Liberal, serving as Ontario’s finance minister a decade ago while representing the area from 2007 to 2018 at Queen’s Park, told residents in attendance that when he helped with the sale of the former brownfield lands to the developer, it was with the understanding that the redevelopment of Lakeview Village would only host approximately 5,000 units, not the 16,000 now slated for the sweeping project. 

Asked how he would secure federal funding for the required infrastructure, to ensure local property taxpayers will not be unfairly burdened, Sousa said, “We need to do a much better job of protecting the community’s vision for that property, for housing and for public access.”

“We need to ensure that what happens in these communities that we have the proper infrastructure to make it so. Now there are hubs because of the GO Train that’s been placed, there’s going to be the Metrolinx spine that goes up Highway 10 but it's not enough to protect Lakeview, Port Credit and Clarkson because a transit system along Lakeshore is just not enough to accommodate them all.”

He continued, without explaining which federal infrastructure program he would access for future funding and how he would secure Mississauga’s fair share. He instead talked about a program designed to boost the construction of new homes, not the required infrastructure around them. 

“We are already working with the cities directly to the chagrin of the province who overrides and oversees these cities,” he said, referring to the previous Liberal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund. He told the audience the program provided municipalities with revenues to cover housing-related costs. “So we are providing supports directly to the cities to enable them not to have to take the burden of property taxes to get those [developments] done.”

Mississauga—Lakeshore Liberal candidate and incumbent Charles Sousa pointed to funding programs like the Housing Accelerator Fund as a way to directly support municipalities.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer files) 

After Mississauga received little support from previous Liberal governments over the last decade, local representatives have stepped up over the last two years to facilitate more support through recent investments including $112.9 million provided to the municipality through the Housing Accelerator Fund and $112 million over ten years through the Canada Public Transit Fund. 

Though Ottawa has been criticized by Queen’s Park for overstepping its jurisdiction through the Housing Accelerator Fund which demands municipalities implement dense, climate and transit friendly growth plans, the federal government has not backed down. The Liberals, signalling the previous government’s frustration with the poor housing performance of provinces and municipalities, introduced mechanisms that will provide funding directly to municipalities like Mississauga, if they eschew sprawl and development practices that fail to ensure affordable housing. 

The federal government’s 2024 budget proposed an investment of $6 billion over 10 years, starting in 2024-25, to Infrastructure Canada to launch a new Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund that would accelerate the construction and upgrading of housing-enabling water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste infrastructure that officials say “will directly enable new housing supply and help improve densification.” The budget also announced $33.5 billion through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program over the next decade, along with $35 billion to be invested by the Canada Infrastructure Bank into revenue generating infrastructure projects such as clean power, green infrastructure and public transit, among others. 

NDP candidate Evelyn Butler said, at Friday’s event, she will “push for dedicated federal infrastructure funding tied directly to housing growth to ensure that Mississauga gets its fair share based on the number of new units built” and “work closely with the local city council to present clear, data-driven cases to federal ministers to secure investments in transit and other public services, so the cost doesn't fall on the backs of local taxpayers." 

The Pointer's 2025 federal election coverage is partly supported by the Covering Canada: Election 2025 Fund. 

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Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock

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