Tackling the Climate Crisis: What the Region of Peel needs and which federal party can deliver

Mississauga-based environmental advocate Rahul Mehta is encouraged by the growing collaboration between the federal government and municipalities in recent years but questions whether the impact has been enough to match the growing threat climate change places on our cities.   

“There's some misguided, kind of trendy actions that have been taken that don't translate to either emissions reductions on the ground or into public support,” he said. “Behaviour change is arguably more important now with increasing politicization.”

Mehta points to the carbon tax as a cautionary example: “It’s something that actually works. But if it doesn’t have public buy-in, it will collapse.”

In the 2025 federal election campaign, climate change has barely surfaced in national debates or party platforms—except on April 1 when Liberal Leader Mark Carney got rid of the  consumer carbon tax—a silence that’s worrisome for municipalities like Peel literally drowning from its effects.

“It’s a bad time to be an environmental advocate,” David Laing, a Brampton-based cycling and climate activist who has worked on the frontlines for years, told The Pointer. 

His frustration is growing—not just because leaders are sidestepping climate in their campaigns, but because they are doing this while the signs of a worsening crisis are everywhere: flooding around Loafer’s Lake in April was a recent example, while many celebrated the rollback of consumer carbon taxes at the gas pump at the same month, and as federal leaders focused on U.S. trade wars rather than rising temperatures and increased pollution.

According to Peel Region’s 2023 Climate Change Master Plan (CCMP) progress report, the region is warming at twice the global average. In 2024, Earth recorded its hottest year yet, with global surface temperatures rising 1.28 degree celsius above NASA’s 20th-century baseline—breaking the previous record set just a year earlier.

Last year was Earth’s hottest since data was collected, capping a decade of record-breaking heat. Canada was among the countries most affected—its average annual temperature has risen by 1.7°C since 1948, nearly twice the global average. Scientists point to rising carbon dioxide and methane emissions as the main driver of this warming trend.

(NASA) 

These rising temperatures are not just statistics—they're reshaping life across Peel.

The spread of diseases carried by pests like mosquitoes and ticks, including West Nile Virus and Lyme disease has been recorded. As the region warms at twice the global average, these diseases become more prevalent, putting additional strain on an already overburdened public health system. With limited frontline medical infrastructure, particularly in Brampton, Peel faces significant challenges in managing the health impacts of climate change.

Extreme weather events have also become more frequent and severe.

In 2013, an ice storm brought down trees, downing hydro lines and covering roads and sidewalks in a thick frozen layer. Thousands of Mississauga homes lost power, with Enersource bringing in extra crews to manage repairs. In Brampton, the outage affected up to 15,000 households. An ice storm that swept through eastern and central parts of Ontario at the end of March this year knocked out power to over 1 million homes. 

Also in 2013, a record-breaking flash flood in July caused more than $850 million in insured property damage across the GTA, making it Ontario’s most expensive natural disaster…up until then.

A decade later, in 2022, flooding near Brampton’s Credit River forced the evacuation of some hundred homes in the Churchville and Steeles Avenue area. 

In 2024, Mississauga was hit by two ‘100-year’ storms in July and August, leading to devastating flooding—particularly in the vulnerable Dixie-Dundas area—costing its residents tens of millions in damage.

August 2024 flooding saw emergency crews rescue dozens of people from vehicles stranded in the middle of flooded roadways and from senior care homes.

(Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services) 

The region’s climate response remains a work in progress. Peel’s most recent pollution inventory shows corporate emissions have dropped by 31.4 percent from 2010 levels—short of the 45 percent reduction target for 2030. Year-over-year, that’s just a 0.6 percent decrease, leaving a gap of roughly 18,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent still to cut. The regional plan is being hampered by Premier Doug Ford and his PC government’s push for natural gas expansion. 

The science is straightforward: greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb, global temperatures follow, and so do climate-related disasters—flooding, disease spread and extreme weather.

So while federal leaders steer clear of the climate conversation, in Peel the battle is being fought in the flooded basements and creeks in Mississauga and Brampton, on overheated schoolyards and in the smoky skies drifting in from distant wildfires.

Views of the Mississauga skyline on two different days. The top is a clear, normal day. The bottom is the same view obscured by the smoke that blanketed the GTA from wildfires burning in Quebec.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer files) 

“Peel stands at a pivotal juncture to reimagine its approach to fighting climate change,” the Region’s climate change and energy management director, Christine Tu, said.

In January 2019, Mississauga City Council declared a climate emergency, adopted the Climate Change Action Plan and set its sights on a 40 percent reduction in GHG emissions from 1990 levels.

In June 2019, Brampton City Council followed suit and declared a climate emergency with the aim to cut its emissions by 50 percent from 2016 levels by the year 2041.

In January 2020, Caledon Council declared a climate emergency and pledged a 36 percent reduction below 2016 levels.

But declarations do little to drive the systemic changes required. Local governments simply don’t have the financial capacity to build the kind of climate resilience now needed, a 2022 Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance report highlighted.

That’s where the federal government must step in. Ottawa needs to restructure disaster relief funding like the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and the Green Municipal Fund—not just to rebuild communities after disasters, but to help them rebuild better, with long-term resilience and climate adaptation in mind.

It will take hundreds of billions of dollars to do this across Canada, perhaps more. The cost of inaction is even higher. 

On April 11, 128 municipal leaders, including Mississauga Councillor Alvin Tedjo, issued an open letter to the five federal party leaders urging for climate-focused action to strengthen Canada’s resilience in the face of natural disasters.

The letter by municipal leaders recommended paying for the five suggested projects “by redirecting billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies, and strengthening the polluter pays principle.”

(Elbows Up for Climate)

“We can’t keep watching our homes, towns and forests burn to a crisp, and pretend the status quo is working or safe. We can’t adapt our way out of this problem,” the letter said.

Between 2015 and 2023, federal investments in core climate adaptation programs totalled more than $6.5 billion. The Canadian Climate Institute’s 2022 independent assessment of the draft National Adaptation Strategy notes that Ottawa has the financial capacity to help communities invest in resilience, but current federal spending on climate adaptation is far too low.

The Green Budget Coalition recommends ramping up these investments to at least $65 billion over the next eight years.

“This federal election, let’s put our elbows up for climate action, and commit to truly national projects to protect and connect our country.”

In Mississauga, one such project that could benefit from such a boost in funding is the Cooksville Creek floodplain forest restoration project.

In February 2025, the City of Mississauga completed the municipal environmental assessment study focused on erosion control and the restoration of Cooksville Creek, south of Lakeshore Road.

(City of Mississauga)

In September, following the damaging flooding in the two months prior, Mississauga city council passed a slew of policies to combat future floods. Among them was the Dixie-Dundas Flood Mitigation Project which will now be accelerated by approximately six years and comes at a price between $8.3 million and $9.5 million, to be fully funded through the City’s Capital Plan. The project will see the replacement of the Dundas Street East bridge crossing with a larger structure to eliminate the upstream spill onto Queen Frederica Drive. Staff say the changes will protect “more than 1,000 properties currently at risk of flooding due to the overflow of Little Etobicoke Creek.”

The City of Mississauga has submitted a request for federal funding to support various flood mitigation and transit projects, including the restoration of Cooksville Creek.

(Government of Canada)

Mississauga has poured over $200 million into stormwater infrastructure since 2016 with plans to invest $365 million between now and 2034. The Pointer previously reported an additional $30 million per year from 2025 to 2124 is required to fully fund the City’s stormwater program and maintain Mississauga’s aging stormwater pipes, according to a 2020 staff analysis. Most recently, the municipality invested $53.5 million as part of its 2025 budget to help respond to future storms, substantially more than the $33.7 million in capital funding allocated in 2024. 

The City’s 2025 pre-budget submission to the federal government warned local spending will not be enough.

“Pressure on the City’s budget to maintain existing and build new infrastructure continues to mount and additional support from the federal and provincial governments is necessary.”

Pairing a strained budget with a daunting infrastructure gap leaves Mississauga with limited spending to effectively respond to the climate crisis that has spawned an increasing frequency of extreme weather events.

According to figures two years ago City Hall was short $40 to $45 million annually with approximately $400 million to $450 million in needed infrastructure investments over a decade that did not have a funding source.

Elected officials and staff inside City Hall have repeatedly stressed current municipal resources can not respond to this rapidly evolving reality alone and have called on upper levels of government to help.

While the City has been actively applying for federal and provincial grants to support critical flood prevention and infrastructure initiatives, Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish previously said “we’ve been left to dry.” She later told The Pointer, “We're starting to be tired of being the poor cousins.”

“Our current flooding situation is much worse than what climate change would suggest, and that is because the water systems that should be collecting that water to manage stormwater—primarily underground pipes—haven't kept up,” Mehta told The Pointer. “Because it's an entire watershed that's buried, like the Credit River watershed, the number of streams which feed into it now is almost nothing compared to what it should be.” 

Looking to get financial relief, the City submitted an application to the Province in the final months of 2024 under the second intake of the PCs Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund to support the reconstruction of Little Etobicoke Creek as part of Mississauga’s Dixie-Dundas Flood Mitigation project. The submission, which requested $30.93 million, was denied by the Province, according to a recent report presented to general committee. If approved, it would have covered 73 percent of the total eligible project costs. 

A spokesperson told The Pointer in July 2024 that the long-term infrastructure plan would be fully funded through the City’s stormwater charge but even that financial resource seems to be running dry. During budget deliberations in November, City staff warned Mississauga’s stormwater reserves could be depleted by 2026 without additional revenue and suggested the possibility of raising the stormwater charge in future years. There was also consideration to adjust contributions to other reserves or direct any funding for flood mitigation toward stormwater projects to offset costs. 

A 2022 report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario warned that climate change-induced extreme rainfall could cost municipalities an additional $700 million annually to maintain stormwater and wastewater systems. 

Earlier this year, the City submitted two applications under the federal government’s Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund requesting just over $24.2 million for the reconstruction of Little Etobicoke Creek (after the application to the Province failed) and roughly $5 million for a stormwater management facility along Ninth Line. Even if the funding is approved, the City would still be on the hook to cover 60 percent of the total project costs.

Federal NDP candidate for Mississauga–Lakeshore, Evelyn Butler, says that support for regions like Peel must go beyond one-time funding. She proposes a Climate Emergency Response Fund that would cut red tape, streamline project approvals, and ensure direct, permanent federal-to-municipal transfers for climate adaptation.

“Our plan starts with stormwater management in high-risk areas, restoring the urban tree canopy to reduce heat islands, and building walkable, transit-friendly communities,” Butler told The Pointer. “We want to expand programs like ALUS Peel to help farmers with wetland restoration and support local biodiversity.”

The ALUS Peel Pilot program helps local farmers implement nature-based solutions to tackle growing environmental challenges, including flooding, topsoil erosion, and habitat loss. In December, the program got a grant from Coca-Cola Canada to support wetland restoration, tree planting, soil erosion control, and livestock fencing—efforts that enhance biodiversity while protecting vital watersheds like the Credit and Humber Rivers. Environmental advocates have, however, raised concerns about Coca-Cola water extraction practices and plastic waste footprint, which can strain local ecosystems.

Mehta has a different approach for preserving watersheds in Peel—“daylighting streams.”

Daylighting a stream involves uncovering waterways that were previously buried in underground pipes or culverts and restoring them to a more natural, open-air state. In places like Seoul, Zürich, Vancouver and Montreal, daylighting projects have helped reduce pressure on outdated stormwater infrastructure by allowing water to flow naturally through open channels. 

The daylighting of an urban brook in a residential Zürich neighborhood transformed the area into a vibrant urban pond and public gathering space.

(Luna Khirfan/University of Waterloo)

“The benefits are massive; people start seeing green spaces woven into their neighborhoods, and they begin to use, value, and protect them,” he added, noting that it requires financial support from the federal government.

While the Liberals have not outlined a specific strategy to address regional flooding, the party has outlined a program to focus on flood-proofing homes. 

Liberal candidate for Mississauga—Streetsville Rechie Valdez promises to invest $1 billion to help power more homes with efficient, affordable electric heating and cooling systems—while also making them more resilient to extreme weather. The plan includes measures to reduce household risk from floods and wildfires, offering direct support for Canadians to protect their homes through adaptation projects like roof repairs, sump pump installations and sealing foundation cracks.

“By increasing (oil-to-heat pump affordability) subsidies and targeting support to low- and middle-income households, we’re ensuring more families in Peel can benefit from this technology,” Valdez said.

Protecting homes from floods is vital, but reducing the emissions that buildings in the region produce is just as critical.

A recent report from The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) reveals buildings and vehicles together accounted for over 83 percent of Peel Region’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. Emissions in the region rose 2.5 percent compared to 2022, a troubling sign as urban growth continues to push climate goals further out of reach.

Back in 2017, a Region of Peel study highlighted how land use patterns affect local temperatures. While northern Peel still features greener landscapes like farmland, natural forests, and grasslands, the southern, urbanized areas have been heating up rapidly. The culprit? The urban heat island (UHI) effect—where dense development and dark surfaces trap heat, making cities significantly warmer than surrounding rural zones.

The average annual temperature from 1981 to 2010 was higher in the southern parts of Peel.

(Region of Peel)

Despite this being common knowledge for nearly a decade, development continues to accelerate without fully addressing the risks, raising the question: are we learning from the past?

In recent years, the City of Mississauga has worked to bring emissions coming from their buildings down by developing a stronger set of Green Development Standards (GDS) — voluntary or mandatory measures implemented by municipalities that promote environmentally, economically and socially sustainable growth. The aim is to guide Mississauga’s transition to net zero and achieve its goal of a 40 percent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2030 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. 

While Mississauga is significantly behind others like Toronto that has had these standards in place since 2006, council and City staff were lauded last year for putting strong sustainability criteria in place for new homes and buildings, which make up the largest part of emissions in the municipality, followed by transportation. It marked the first time council approved a strengthened version since the original set was established in 2012. 

In the name of reducing emissions, these standards aim to reduce energy use, water consumption and waste contribution. GDS places sustainability as the guiding force for new development rather than a checklist item left on the backburner of an application waiting on final approval.

An effective strategy for reducing emissions while meeting development needs, according to Phil Pothen, Ontario environment program manager at Environmental Defence, is to build more mid-rise housing. 

By lowering the costs of mid-rise construction, he believes municipalities can make this option competitive with high-rise development, incentivizing the creation of affordable housing. This approach provides a diverse range of unit sizes and appealing ground-level accommodations, while avoiding suburban sprawl away from transit hubs and existing infrastructure.

“Municipal governments must do all they can on their own initiative, and the federal government should be using its spending power to ensure both provinces and municipalities are empowered to do the right thing,” Pothen stressed.

“We need fewer unsustainable ‘McMansions’ and more secure, safe, accessible housing,” Mississauga — Streetsville NDP candidate Bushra Asghar told The Pointer.

Asghar also shared her personal experience of living in the suburbs without owning a car, highlighting the importance of improving public transit in areas like Peel.

“I rely on transit myself. We need better transit options in places like Peel.”

The lack of transit connectivity in Peel has driven many residents to rely on their own vehicles, which in turn has contributed to the sharp increase in emissions from transportation. According to the TAF report, this rise in vehicle use has pushed Peel’s carbon pollution above pre-pandemic levels, with Mississauga leading the region at 6.7 million metric tonnes of emissions, above Brampton’s 4 million—while Caledon accounted for nearly 685,000.

Transportation is projected to be the largest source of emissions in Canada till 2030.

(IMFG)

Mississauga, which has traditionally been underserved by major transit investments from Ottawa and Queen’s Park compared to other municipalities of its size, has swiftly been evolving into a leader in Ontario when it comes to reducing its transit footprint.

The City recently became the province’s first municipality to pilot hydrogen fuel cell buses in its transit fleet — a title that was recognized and rewarded by Ottawa through the federal government’s Zero-Emission Transit Fund, which provided $10.9 million to support the City’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Bus project. The project, launched in September, is aimed at deploying electric hydrogen fuel cell buses in Mississauga in an effort to move towards more sustainable public transit. The funding will allow MiWay to purchase 10 hydrogen fuel cell buses, and install equipment at its Malton transit facility to fuel them.

But the funding announcement was a blip in the larger picture of what Mississauga needs to respond to its transit system’s burgeoning ridership growth, which has exceeded well beyond pre-pandemic levels. The City anticipates the demand will continue on an upward trend as more vertical density transcends in communities across the municipality. Building on the system’s recovery success, the service saw another 14 percent increase last year and previous estimates from staff predict MiWay ridership will grow an additional seven percent in 2025.

With growing demand comes increased costs as the City looks to expand services. As part of its 2025 pre-budget asks, the municipality requested $500 million in funding from the provincial and federal governments to build a new transit facility to accommodate the municipality's transition to a zero-emission fleet — a cost Mississauga officials say is “substantial and exceeds the City’s current budgetary capacity.” 

While transit was among the highest areas of capital spending in the 2025 budget with the City allocating $108.9 million, it marked a notable decrease from the $144.2 million investment made in 2024. Funding for the year ahead included $33.2 million in buses and $34.1 million in high order transit as the City moves to electrify its fleet after MiWay announced in 2022 it would no longer purchase any new diesel buses. The move was made as part of the service’s green sustainability initiatives and to meet the emissions reduction target the City has set. 

For Mehta, the focus needs to shift beyond the flashy solutions to those that have practical, long-term impact. 

“Nobody’s going to meet the 2030 targets, there’s no question about that,” he noted. “But if we hope to meet the 2050 targets, we need to build public support now—over the next five years. The next term of government, both provincial and federal, is crucial. They have one term to pivot toward more effective, incentive-driven actions, especially the less glamorous projects.”

Mehta points out that a third bus garage in Mississauga is far more important than the federal funding for electric or hydrogen buses. “The garage will be ready for those buses, but we need the infrastructure first. Getting the buses is important, but building the garage should come first,” he said. 

“It’s baffling to me that this is something the City has been asking for years, but even now, the priority is electric buses, which are twice as expensive as regular buses. This means we can buy half as many buses for the same money, and we need more buses, not fewer.”

For Mehta, things circle back to public support. 

He fears what happened to the carbon tax is playing out locally with the controversial three-stop BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) project along Lakeshore Road in Mississauga—a federally and provincially funded initiative that many residents criticize, not for the technology or the idea of improved transit, but for its limited scope.

The Lakeshore Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) study focuses on the section of Lakeshore Road between East Avenue and Etobicoke Creek, and has been funded through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP).

(City of Mississauga)

“It doesn’t fundamentally address the real issues—connectivity, multimodal transportation, or the broader needs of the waterfront…we’re spending hundreds of millions on three stops, crammed into a narrow corridor on Lakeshore, when that money could have gone toward dedicated bus corridors on streets with far fewer conflicts,” Mehta noted.

He adds that despite congestion worsening and the LRT falling behind schedule, cycling and walking are actually on the decline in Mississauga, even as bus service grows and shows promising ridership increases. 

“More buses might not be glamorous, but they work. And a small reduction in fares can go a long way too. So yes, there’s some seriously misguided targeting happening here.”

There are “countless reports” by environmental groups that outline the solutions and reductions needed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. “But not only are we not close, we’re getting further off track. And I think the big problem is the lack of public support,” he said. 

Liberal candidate for Mississauga Centre Fares Al Soud, and NDP’s Asghar plan to tackle the challenge around public support for climate initiatives similarly.

Al Soud aims to scale “green building initiatives through national retrofit programs tied to local job creation,” while Aghar is advocating for a Youth Climate Corps, a “federally funded jobs program that would guarantee any person under 35 a job in climate mitigation and adaptation work.”

Mehta hopes the next Mississauga federal representatives will champion environmentally friendly programs that not only prioritize sustainability but also build the public support needed to make meaningful change a reality—because, in the end, the future of our planet depends on both the policies we create and the people who stand behind them. 

The Pointer reached out to Conservative Party of Canada and Green Party candidates in ridings across Peel for comment, but none responded. 

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

Email: [email protected]

Email: [email protected]

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