Mississauga’s Mayoral byelection will be held on June 10, 2024. Regardless of who is elected, the next Mayor of Mississauga has the opportunity to show leadership. They can make Mississauga a city that takes wellness, health and equity seriously, and ensures a better future for every resident. Wellesley Institute makes the following recommendations that should be prioritized as crucial first steps toward a stronger, more equitable Mississauga.
Mental Health and Well-being
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the stark differences in mental health outcomes for structurally disadvantaged communities. Along with a heightened risk of infection, the emergency phase of the pandemic intensified the socioeconomic challenges these communities face. This includes increasing income and housing insecurity, limited access to health and social services, lack of social connection, and racism and discrimination – which all likely contribute to poorer mental health and well-being.
The current system, and many proposed government actions on mental health, focus largely on treatments which do not address the root causes of poor mental health and well-being. Mississauga’s next mayor can create a new narrative around improving mental health in the city by prioritizing action on economic, social and environmental factors that make up the social determinants of health. This includes housing, employment, income, education, social capital and racism. They can boldly create change and use their platform to improve mental well-being in the city by leading on multisectoral action.
To that end, we recommend:
- Delivering and fully funding a sustainable and collective mental health and well-being strategy for the City of Mississauga. The strategy should implement community-based initiatives to improve the mental health and well-being of residents and act on the social determinants of health to build a resilient city.
- Funding (with municipal dollars) one-third of the number of supportive housing units needed for Mississauga residents.
- Creating a community crisis service based on Toronto’s successful model, and modified for Mississauga’s unique community needs.
- Developing and expanding on programs that address youth mental health.
- Collaborating with the provincial government to ensure all students have access to mental health services and resources when needed, and that teachers, school staff and early childhood educators are provided with appropriate training and resources on mental health literacy.
Transit
The positive health and social impacts of good public transit are clear. Access to affordable and conveniently located transit is critical for residents to reach their places of work and education, family and friends, and necessary services. It promotes physical activity through transit-related walking, reduces commute-related stress and decreases reliance on private transportation which plays an important role in reducing carbon emissions. Wellesley research has also shown that the cost to thrive – to live a healthy, meaningful life – in Mississauga is significantly impacted by the lack of adequate public transit and subsequent costs related to owning and maintaining private vehicles.
All city work on public transportation should support building and maintaining a truly equitable transit system that ensures these benefits are realized for all. This means improving the system over time to achieve equitable access and fare affordability for all communities. All policy and program decision-making actions should involve regular and meaningful community consultation.
To build a stronger transit system, we recommend:
- Establishing, in consultation with community and experts, a vision and timeline for transforming the transit system so that it delivers on health equity for everyone by allowing them to get where they need to go in a reasonable amount of time.
- Setting and meeting annual targets to increase affordability until fare costs for people with less than they need to thrive are fully covered.
- Aligning the development of the transit system with carbon emission reduction goals, as carbon emissions can have disproportionate health impacts on equity-deserving groups.
Housing
As the cost of housing has gone beyond the reach of many residents, all levels of government are turning their attention to “housing affordability.”
A focus on housing affordability, now that it has become a problem for middle-class voters, may cause leaders to miss the more acute need to address affordable, healthy housing for all. Mayoral candidates should construct their plans from the bottom up and explain how their proposals will assist those who need their help the most.
Mayoral candidates should focus on ending chronic homelessness within 10 years and publicly provide clear and measurable targets. They should commit to reducing, through municipal action, the net total of persons experiencing homelessness by at least one-third by 2033 and provide the public with tangible targets for municipal actions that reduce net homelessness by 3.3 per cent every year.
We hope these proposals will support Mississaugans who do not have what they need to thrive.
A Thriving Mississauga
Thriving means having resources to meet physical, social and psychological health needs now and in the future. It includes having resources to meet health needs related to food and nutrition, physical activity, personal care and shelter. But it also goes beyond this to consider the resources needed to meaningfully connect with others, access quality care such as child or seniors’ care and adequately save for one’s future. It means a future in which everyone living in Mississauga can have what they need to be healthy.
Mississauga’s next mayor must also recognize that Mississauga’s success, and the well-being of its people, requires not just more jobs but good jobs. This should go beyond just income and encompass all aspects of the Thriving at Work framework such as secure, safe, inclusive and fair workplaces. Mississauga does not need to accept that certain employers do not treat employees in a way that enables them to be healthy. Other employers will step up.
As with other social determinants of health, poverty and work are too often viewed by municipalities as solely a federal or provincial problem. Achieving a Mississauga everyone can thrive in requires all levels of government to take full responsibility for delivering on these needs.
Wellesley recommends mayoral candidates commit to:
- Helping move every worker towards a thriving wage. The City must build a healthier and more economically resilient future by consulting with community and experts, and then introduce an enhanced minimum wage.
- The wage should reflect the cost of living and needs of Mississauga residents, then over time be integrated into a plan to achieve a thriving wage for all.
- Mississauga should use its existing Municipal Act authority to pass bylaws to address the “economic, social and environmental well-being of the city” as well as the “health, safety and well-being of persons.” This would build upon, not thwart, the provincial minimum wage.
- Mississauga should also consider developing, then providing, evidence to the provincial and federal governments of the increased income tax receipts and reduced social safety net costs this would produce, and seek to recover that money for the municipal budget.
- Ensuring everyone working in the municipal employment chain (including City staff, contractors and City-funded non-profits) achieves a living wage immediately. The City should then put in place a plan, with targets, to achieve a thriving income within a reasonable timeline.
- Undertaking a full review of municipal taxation and fees (including transit fares and municipal fines) so that they are fully consistent with ensuring those who do not have what they need to Thrive can get there, as well as pushing for a review at the regional level.
While much more needs to be done to achieve health equity for all, mayoral candidates should act on improving the health of Mississauga residents by prioritizing these recommended actions on critical social determinants of health. This includes taking leadership on mental health and well-being, good jobs, developing a public transit system that is adequate and accessible for all residents, and doing their part to end chronic homelessness.