State of the City 2025

It’s an honor to be here for this State of the City address.

I want to start by acknowledging, the great work of the Board of Trade. Jaipaul Massey-Singh, and your team at the Board of Trade have been phenomenal. You started about a year and a half ago. He’s brought energy and enthusiasm and a credible, a collaborative approach. So can we have a round of applause for Jaipaul Massey-Singh? Your work empowers Brampton to not only, survive, but to thrive. You’ve been a great champion for businesses.

There’s been a lot of talk about trade here today, a little bit about the elephant in the room or the one that Canada sleeps next to. Obviously it’s unfortunate and unproductive to have to worry about these potential tariffs. And although we’re encouraged by the reprieve, we must take it seriously. We must speak with one voice from every level of government, from every sector of industry, from every corner of the country. And certainly in Brampton. We’ll do that. As you’ve heard, we’re producers in Brampton, from making cars to batteries, from mattresses to toothpaste, from groceries to everyday essentials. Brampton produces great products for Canadians, Americans and the world. And that’s something we’re going to continue to focus on, continue to be producers.

Today, I want to reflect on the tremendous progress and momentum we’re seeing in Brampton. Recently we’ve seen our community rapidly growing to new heights. Business is growing, innovation is growing. And the message really today is think big. Brampton should continue to think big. And let’s take a few moments to look at some of the big thinking we’re seeing in our city, because I really think what we’re seeing happen on an economic development level is going to enable our city to reach our full potential.

A great example I start with this is the ongoing great news with with MDA.

I remember going to pitch MDA about having their headquarters in Brampton for that major expansion on the Kaneff property, and they had this massive investment, $100 million investment to create 700 high quality jobs, but has gone well beyond that. MDA landed the $1 Billion ($998 million to be correct), Canadian Space Agency contract. On the forefront of space exploration in our city. Reach for the stars, think big. There’s no better example than MDA. And they’re not just doing work in Canada. Literally major operations now around the world. I visited their office and in the UK. And to see this growth, this innovation happen from our city is beautiful to see.

Look at Stellantis, thanks to federal and provincial investment and of course, Stellantis itself. There’s an investment of a staggering $3.6 billion to retool its Canadian auto plants and solidifying Brampton as a leader in the green economy. 3000 plus jobs just with Stellantis that we’re excited to see as part of their future in our city. And they’ve also opened the Stellantis Canadian Parts Distribution center, a 500,000 square foot facility representing a new investment and 250 workers.

I know it’s been a tenuous time in the auto sector, but, it’s great to see them speak so clearly that they’re here in Canada and they’re here to stay, and they’re here to continue to grow good paying jobs in our community.

Another point of success this year is Magna International. We’ve got eight Magna facilities in Brampton, eight. And you’d be lucky to have one Magna facility. We have eight of them in our community. And they’re going to be building manufacturing battery trays for electric vehicles in a 490,000 square foot facility built by Panettone Developments right here in the city of Brampton.

Now, we’ve already heard a little bit about Valle Foam. Peter, their President is here. They just unveiled an 18,000 square foot expansion that I had the chance to visit. If you sleep on a mattress, which most people do. Odds are it comes from Brampton

And we have our friends from Lululemon here. Who doesn’t love Lululemon? They’re building. They’re constructing their largest distribution facility in North America, not just Canada, North America. That will create 1500 new jobs in our community. Great to have Lululemon as part of the Brampton family.

HelloFresh is also thinking big, employing 600 workers, in a 200,000 square foot facility. Their home cooked meals are distributed literally from Brampton to Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. And they’re continuing to grow, continuing to hire, continuing to invest in our city. These are examples of milestones in our business community that reflect that think big attitude that we love about Brampton.

Talking about being big. Brampton is growing. Brampton is growing fast. We’re the third largest city in Ontario, seventh largest city in the country with 800,000 people, more than 140,000 businesses. So to put this in perspective, if you look at the Stats Canada numbers, we’re adding 45,000 new residents every year in Brampton, 3700 new people a month, 125 people a day. This is the fastest growing city in Canada. This is a destination of choice for those that are looking for new housing, looking for employment and sure, that comes with challenges, but it also speaks to something special that is happening in Brampton and it’s mind boggling. But it’s our reality right now. The growth isn’t just in population, it’s an economic development.

Despite this tremendous growth, we’ve been able to continue to invest our infrastructure, our quality of life. We’ve maintained our triple A credit rating. I know we’ve got our city treasurer here and CEO. We’ve got a great corporate leadership. I want them to stand. And the budget team, if you could stand up for the great work you’re doing. Thank you.

I’m proud to say that Brampton isn’t just being recognized locally as a destination. For the fourth consecutive year, Brampton is listed as one of the top investment locations in Canada, according to Site Selection Magazine. And the Toronto Star highlighted recently that Magna International, CN Railway and Canadian Tire are all leading the charge for the Canadian economy. And guess what those three companies have in common? They’re all having major presences in Brampton. I was also proud to see that the Greater Toronto’s top employers list for 2025 saw Brampton all over it as well. For their top employers, they listed five Brampton companies Alectra, Dynacare, Loblaw, MDA Space, and Medtronic. All are here today.

Thank you for being a great example of companies that support their employees.

We also celebrated a lot of anniversaries this year. Business anniversaries. I want to congratulate the Stevens Company, Harris-Stolper, Zochem, Sun Pharma Valle Foam, Plastcoat, a division of Magna who all celebrated business anniversaries of success in our community. I think the Stevens Company was like 150 years too. These are some iconic companies with real history and heritage in our community.

So can we also recognize these great Brampton companies that continue to grow?

Nothing makes us more excited. Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than when I hear about new investments and new jobs being created in Brampton. Steve Ganesh, our Planning Director, is here. Any time a business tells us they want to expand and add additional square footage to their facility, and I will bend over backwards to make sure that we can achieve that expansion. And it’s wonderful to see such an interest in growing in our community.

Handi Foods, a $25 million expansion. Sun Pharma $30 million investment. Italpasta’s major expansion. Brampton continues to be a hotbed for industry growth. And I think it’s it’s really an indication of the talented businesses that we have here in Brampton.

I know Jaipaul , they’re all members of the Board of Trade too. So there is talent in the Board of Trade. We got job creators in the Board of Trade.

I always ask Steve Ganesh for the numbers when I come to do the State of The City. I want to know the numbers. What we’re seeing in construction, each year in Brampton. And the numbers are astounding. In 2024, there was over 2.5 million square feet of new space that was created.

That’s 30% greater than 2023. Every year we’re growing in Brampton. And we think one year’s been incredible on an economic developtment front, and the next year it continues to be better. Commercial construction grew by 36%, with 350,000 square feet of new construction. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In the northwest of Brampton, we are finally, I say finally, anyone in the development field will agree with is finally able to get Heritage Heights approved. We had a never ending provincial mediation, but that unlocks massive potential in terms of new industry, employment and housing. It’s 400 acres that is ready to go and it is serviced. I know we have our friends of the Region of Peel here who’ve been working with us on that as well. So that’s going to really equate to some of the most exceptional employment growth in our city and I know Councillor Palleschi and Councillor Brar are very excited about that because it’s in Wards 2 & 6.

The city continues to think big, when it comes to planning and development efficiency. I’m going to single out Steve Ganesh too and make him stand, because one thing the city has responsibility for is planning approvals. And if you want to invest in a city, you don’t want to see red tape. And so I always tell Steve, I said, you got to be the fastest. You’ve got to be the fastest in the country in terms of approvals, whether it’s no or yes, I want there to be certainty that this is a city that works closely with the investment community, to enable their growth in our city.

I’m pleased to report that on the build list, we were ranked third overall and number one for big cities in terms of the fastest approvals. So can we have a round of applause for Steve Ganesh and his team?

Now, fastest big city approval times, third amongst all cities. Sometimes it’s a little easier for a little city to get their approvals done, but fastest for the big cities. And just to say, when we started this journey, Steve, when I gave you that as your mandate to be fast at cutting red tape, we started out as 12th out of 15th. Brampton was known as a slow place to do business, a slow place to get approvals. And what I hear, from the investment sector now, is that this is a great place to do business. This is a great place to create jobs. And the planning team have been, integral to that $6.8 billion in construction value added to our economy because of approvals like the ones that you’ve been responsible for. $6.8 billion in 3 years. That’s a staggering number.

We have a next to zero vacancy rate for office space. You know, Toronto, you hear about significant commercial vacancy. You don’t hear about commercial vacancy in Brampton. There’s something exciting in our economy here that is directing that. And that’s why we’re doubling down on creating more employment. I’m pleased to share that our council has passed a development charges policy to incentivize employment. So whether it is a mixed use project, or whether it’s freestanding, if you have 20,000 square feet or more of employment, we are waiving those development charges to make this the easiest city to create jobs and to bring investment to our community.

To our council. Thank you for that enticement, for helping us, really put out a message that we want to bring office space, and jobs to our, to our community.

It really is interesting, once you put out that picture, what comes in, and I see Paul and Martin smiling because you’re gonna be the one sending that message that we want, that we want to market that incentive. You look at the Prologis Evergreen project, Councillor Toor, I toured that with you. It’s like multiple football fields, that they’re building just of employment, and and it’s done in a sustainable fashion. There are so many examples like that of our local economy that is just booming.

I think sometimes we focus on all the big businesses. I also want to highlight that we’ve got these incredible small businesses. Every councillor, has been doing small business tours and I join them and we highlight, successful small businesses. And there are so many small businesses that are just absolutely fantastic. Last year in this Board of Trade speech, I spoke about, and Nigerian bread company (Grey Matlock Bakery). I said, this year I want to highlight a few others that have been growing really fast. We want to recognize at a Adamas Internationlal, which is in the jewelry space, we just did a tour of them. I believe they’re here. They’re growing, they’re innovative. We’ve got Med Melanin, Toprock Climbing is examples of small businesses that are growing in the city of Brampton. So a shout out to all our small businesses. You are the heart blood of our local economy.

Another economic advancement this year that I really want to highlight, and that occurred in the Fall, was Dr. Frank Martino launched the Osler Research Institute for Health Innovation. And there’s a lot of great things happening on the health care front. And we’re going to hear, shortly from Osler. But the Osler Research Institute is already right now talk about job creation. These are medical jobs. They’ve got 163 studies, right now underway, 76 clinical trials. So when you think of the Osler team, you think of obviously being on the front lines of health care, but they’re also on the front lines of medtech and economic development. We are grateful to have the Osler family in our city.

And this year’s very special. This is a historic year for, the city of Brampton and for Osler. On February 2nd, Osler celebrated their 100th anniversary, 100 years of Osler in the City of Brampton. And we’re going to bring up Osler to the stage, to hear a little bit about what they’re working on. We have with us today. We’ve got Pardeep Singh Gill, who’s the chair of the board, we’ve got Dr. Frank Martino, who’s the president of the hospital. We go Ken Mayhew who I speak to sometimes more often than I speak to my family because he’s always fundraising, to build our second hospital. But there’s been no point in our city’s history that’s been more transformative for health care. And what they’re going to share with you is exciting in the sense that Brampton has sort of been at the epicenter of hallway medicine, a city that’s grown as fast as us… health care funding hasn’t kept up.

And this has been probably one of our number one advocacy points to all levels of government. We need help in Brampton. And so a few years ago, we got the approval for our second hospital, got into the provincial budget. They’ve actually already set the date for the groundbreaking March 28th at 10 a.m.. Make sure you’re with us. We want to see shovels in the ground for this special project. The city of Brampton has committed to $125 million, and we’re working on fundraising more every single day, because this is an enormous project. And you don’t build hospitals nowadays in Ontario unless everyone steps up. The challenge with, with health care builds in Ontario is if you’re not ready to go, there’s another community that is. And so we’ve been under the gun, per se in Brampton to make sure that we met our local contribution to get shovels in the ground. And that’s on the precipice of happening.

If you look at the health care investment that’s coming into our community, never in our history, have we seen what we’re seeing right now, whether it’s the regional cancer center, whether it’s a med school, whether it’s a second hospital, you combine that all your well over $2 billion coming into health care in Brampton. So it’s an exciting time in our city’s journey for health care. And on the same vein of health care, the city launched a medtech task force to work with the hospital and the med school. Our Deputy Mayor Harkirat Singh spoke about that last year, but he’s been shepherding our medtech task force. Thank you for the work on our med tech jobs. Jobs of the future. I’m glad Dr Martino acknowledged TMU, because that’s the next area that I really wanted to highlight that this is a special advancement this year in the City of Brampton.

This summer, the postgraduate students start at TMU’s Medical School in Brampton. This has been a very special project, that I’m more than excited about. First new med school in the GTA in 100 years. TMU in Brampton. Thank you Mohamed Lachemi for your vision, your creativity. I want Mohamed to stand up for a moment.

Just to share how staggering this investment is. When we first started working on this project, we needed to quickly find space. So the city provided vital space that was ready to be quickly renovated and to open the doors very quickly. We’re ahead of schedule of other medical schools that are opening in Canada.

I believe there’s one in P.E.I. and one with Simon Fraser. And the reason we’re ahead of the game and the reason that we’re opening the doors this summer, is because of Mohamed’s team and the city’s close partnership, and this very incredible support from the Province of Ontario.

Just to give you a size of the scale, first year starts, in September, once we have all four years in the operating cost for this medical school that are fully funded from the province of Ontario is $100 million a year, $100 million a year going into Brampton, going into our community. They’re going to work very closely with the hospital, with our economic development department. There’s going to be a ton of spin off, but it’s also going to be the cream of the cream. This medical school is going to be extraordinary. So 6,500 applications this year. To put that into context, U of T is about 3000. To put in even better context, Harvard, this medical school right now based on the first year’s admission, will be harder to get into than Harvard. So 3% of applicants get into Harvard, 1.46% get into TMU. You’re going to see the highest GPA. You’re going to see some of the most qualified candidates in the province. I can’t wait to see the talent that comes out of this med school that’s going to work in Brampton, that’s going to work in that second hospital, and that’s going to care for our community.

Mohamed, what you’re working on, what you’re going to open the doors to this summer and this fall is going to be a key component of our health care journey. We can’t wait to see what’s going to come from this. So, round of applause to the team at TMU.

The next very transformative area that I thought it was important to talk about is what’s happening in our downtown. Now, the downtown has been a bit of a case wher we need to pull the bandage off. We’ve had some projects that were, talked about and talked about, but we didn’t actually start them. This year, the stars have aligned. They’ve come together. The starting point was Riverwalk. So Riverwalk is a $100 million flood, relief project where we have this special policy designation from the province where we can’t build in our downtown unless we do the flood mitigation work. But we need to the province and the federal government to come to the table to share the burden of this very expensive work, to make sure we can build density and create jobs in our downtown. We’ve been pitching that for years, and the last year the federal government said we’re in, we’re funding a third. The province came and said we’re funding a third, and the city already had our funds set aside. The Riverwalk project will be complete by spring of 2028. And what’s even better than that? The province has given us permission to start issuing building permits so that we can start the work right away, knowing that the occupancy permits will follow. So all this incredible work that we’re going to talk about in the downtown can start now. Riverwalk is incredible for our city. Thank you to City Council. Thank you to our incredible staff at City Hall who have really made this a focal point to get Riverwalk funded because it unleashes so much potential in the downtown.

We have friends here today from Amico. Dominic, give us a wave. Dominic’s all the way from from Windsor. Amico is one of the, the biggest, construction companies in Canada. They’re building LRT phase one, likely be building LRT phase two, but they’re also our partners with the Centre for Innovation. And I’m pleased to report we just had a sign unveiling in the downtown. You may not see it because it only went up about 1 or 2 days ago, but it says our partners for the center for innovation, Amico, TMU and Rogers, one of Canada’s most iconic companies,

So Rogers, one of our partners in the downtown, Canada’s largest provider of wireless services, a leading cable company and a major player in broadcasting and sports entertainment. And there’s going to be some announcements to come from Amico and TMU and Rogers about what they have planned. But let me just say how great it is to have companies like that as our partners in our downtown revitalization.

And I’ve seen some of the plans and, and they’ll be released in the days to come, but I really believe it’s going to make our downtown a magnet for investment, a magnet for job in the future. So thank you to these partners. A round of applause for Rogers, TMU, and Amico.

And that leads to the announcement that everyone has sort of referenced, which was LRT phase two. Six years ago they said there was no phase two. This was a topic that divided the city. But here we are today. Six years ago we had a crazy plan, and I still remember sitting down with our friends at LiUNA, the late Premier Bill Davis. I see Dave Kapil here. You were part of that huddle and we said, think BIG. Be more ambitious for for Brampton.

For me, when I thought about our downtown, that narrow downtown and then performance of this investment for LRT phase two, you know I thought about the city of Toronto, which is larger and more advanced in their development when they built their subway, a young street in 1954. Imagine, they said in 1954, you know what? We don’t need a subway. We’re going to cut some corners and we’re going to do TTC instead on the surface. Anyone drive a Younge St?. Could you imagine they didn’t have a subway, Younge St. It would be a disastrous.

This tunnel we’re getting in the downtown, I’m not sure I am supposed to share the total investment, but I can, $2.8 billion being invested in our community. $2.8 billion. The scale of that, 33,000 new housing units going to be created on that corridor, 17,000 jobs over the lifespan of that project. This is a game changer for our downtown.

Our Transportation Minister, isn’t here, Prab Sarkaria. But I really felt the stars were aligned. You know, we have a local Brampton MP made the Transport Minister. When you have both the federal provincial governments ready to help, the stars finally were allowed align for Brampton. And I look at our council members they’ve been with me at every AMO meeting, every FCM meeting, every meeting with senior levels of government. We made that pitch, for this funding. And you can attest. You know, six years ago, they looked at us with a pretty strange face. We made this request. But when you think big and you’re ambitious, you never know what is possible.

And this vision, is going to be incredible for the City of Brampton, for public transit, for housing.

And I also want to thank the Board of Trade because they were big advocates, for pushing this project. So thank you, Jaipaul, your team, the Board of Trade, for helping us champion LRT phase two.

From cutting edge space technology with MDA space to electric vehicle advancements with Stellantis, we are at the heart of industries that will define the 21st century. We are a city that isn’t just building here today. We are thinking big about tomorrow. As I close, I want to leave you with this. The state of our city is solid, robust, and our best days lie ahead.

When you hear about all these projects that are just starting, just underway, it’s exciting to think about Brampton’s future. We are a city that is defined by our diversity, our innovation, and our unstoppable spirit and unmatched work ethic. We are incredibly fortunate to have the best and the brightest here in Brampton, and there are so many here today that reflect the beauty of our city and the opportunity of our city.

Thank you for your continued dedication to Brampton’s success. Thank you for continuing to punch beyond your weight for climbing to new heights, and to reaching out literally to space. Thank you for thinking Big, Brampton.