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Get Ready Ontario — Mississauga Mayoral Campaign.png
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 Michael Matulewicz     

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

 

 $500 million dollars ......ANNUALLY ...  the province has failed to provide City of Mississauga for the past 2 decades, $10 billion dollars of owed funding.

 

100,000 of your votes, based not on campaign dollars, slogans or poles, just on you demanding your fair share of the taxes you've payed returned to your community.

 

It is the only way to improve the health, safety and prosperity of our communities without tax increases as presently predicted.

Michael Matulewicz, 

Mayoral Candidate 2026

 

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Canada's strength is its communities.

Not its military installations. Not its intelligence agencies. Its communities.

 

When communities are strong, everything else follows.

 

When people feel safe in their neighbourhoods — when emergency services arrive, when no one goes hungry or homeless or forgotten, when health care and social supports are present and working — communities become resilient.

 

They become places worth protecting and worth belonging to.

 

They produce people who invest in their neighbours rather than turning against them.

 

They close the door on criminal recruitment, radicalization, and the politics of blame.

 

The promise that drew people to Canada — a safer life, a fair chance, a country that includes rather than excludes — is not a sentiment. It is a public safety strategy.

 

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Mississauga has been asking for fairness for decades.

 

Your 100,000 votes will get it done.

 

More funding for police. More beds for mental health. More paramedics. More fire coverage. More affordable housing.

 

The requests are documented. The appeals are on record. The answers from Queen's Park have been inadequate — year after year, government after government.

 

Here is what it costs you today.

 

For every dollar you pay in property taxes, only 37 cents comes back as city services — roads, parks, fire stations, libraries, transit.

 

The Ontario average is 76 cents.

 

SOURCE: City of Mississauga 2025 Budget · The Pointer, November 2024 · Metamorphosis Network Independent Analysis

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Mississauga over pays for Policing services , 40% of your property  taxes.

Mississauga pays 62% of the entire Peel Regional Police budget. Brampton pays 38% — despite near-equal populations today.

 

This imbalance is locked in by a funding formula based on 2016 property values that no longer reflect reality.

 

The provincial funding gap amounts to $868 million per year — $575 per person, every single year.

 

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The true cost of doing nothing.

 

Mississauga's share of the provincial funding annual shortfall is just under $500 million.

 

That is not a new problem. It has been documented, appealed, and ignored for over two decades.

 

$10 billion.

 

At $500 million per year, over twenty years Mississauga has been shorted an estimated ten billion dollars in community funding it was owed and never received.

 

That is a generation of services that were never built, never staffed, and never delivered to you.

 

Based on Metamorphosis Network / Blueprint ADE analysis · City of Mississauga budget submissions · The Pointer, 2024

 

Imagine Mississauga with ten billion dollars returned to its community over those twenty years.

 

Paramedics arriving faster. Mental health beds available when families needed them. Fire stations fully staffed.

 

Affordable housing built. Community programs funded. Roads repaired.

 

A hospital expansion that did not have to be turned away. That is not a fantasy.

 

That is what fair funding looks like.

 

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That is what every other comparable community in Ontario already receives.

 

We are not asking for more than our share. We are asking for exactly our share.

 

And we are done asking politely.

 

We have one option left.

 

Not another appeal. Not another report. Not another delegation to Queen's Park that returns empty-handed.

 

One hundred thousand Mississauga voters saying the same thing at the same time.

 

That is a force that cannot be outspent, ignored, or dismissed.

 

This campaign accepts no donations. No lobbyists. No consultants.

 

What established parties spend millions trying to manufacture — public opinion — already exists here.

 

It does not need to be bought.

 

It needs to be counted.

 

Politicians respond to one thing reliably. ... Votes.

 

When Mississauga receives fair provincial funding, the math is straightforward.

 

Municipal taxes reduce by 8 to 15% annually.

 

Police, fire, ambulance, mental health, and social services improve — not because we spend more, but because we finally receive what we have already paid for.

 

No new taxes. No cuts. Just fairness.

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This is not my campaign!

It is our campaign!

To end the decades long neglect of our communities essential services.

 

Our communities don't have adequate health care, ambulance services, police services, fire services, and families that are hungry and homeless. 

To speak on your behalf without fear or favour, armed with facts and the knowledge that I speak for 100,000 of my neighbours.

TOGETHER, we can do this. Foreword this web site, talk to your neighbour, use your social media #getreadyontario.com, there are several pages of ideas at the end of this web site. Have some fun. It's your democratic right.

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First about you,” my community" Erin Mills Mississauga.

 

In my brief and humble political efforts to improve the safety, health and prosperity of our community, I’ve been overwhelmed by the kindness and support of my neighbours new and old.

 

You breathe life into and make real, our true Canadian values everyday. 

 

For that I am eternally grateful.  Mike

 

MICHAEL MATULEWICZ — MISSISSAUGA MAYORAL CAMPAIGN 2026

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Our community. Our problem. Our solution.

Every day in Mississauga, people in mental health crisis, housing distress, medical need, and social emergency dial 911. A police officer arrives. Not because their situation is criminal. Because there is no one else to send.

That is not a policing failure. It is a community infrastructure failure. And it is costing residents in delayed response times, inadequate care, and a police budget that grows every year to absorb problems that do not belong to it.

80%. 

The Peel Regional Police Chief's own budget submissions confirm that approximately 80% of calls for service are not criminal in nature.

 

They are health calls. Social service calls. Wellness checks. Housing crises. Mental health emergencies.

Highly trained police officers, spend the majority of their time attending service calls that could be handled more appropriately, more effectively, and at significantly lower cost by trained social /health care workers.

SOURCE: Peel Regional Police budget submissions · House of Commons Economics of Policing Report

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For example..

Toronto's Community Crisis Service handled 6,827 calls in its first period of operation. Only 2.2% required any police attendance. Seventy-eight percent of mental health crisis calls were resolved entirely without police — faster, more appropriately, and at a fraction of the cost of a police response.

 

SOURCE: City of Toronto Social Development Division · Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being, 2026

 

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Mississauga already has the legal authority to act.

 

To fully partner with Peel Regional Police and address the 80% health and social assistance calls.

 

No new legislation is required. No provincial permission is needed. The legal framework exists today — and it places this authority squarely with the City.

 

The Municipal Act, 2001 — Section 11 A municipality may provide any service or thing it considers necessary or desirable for the public. Municipalities hold direct jurisdiction over the health, safety, and well-being of persons.

 

A city-run community crisis response service is a direct and lawful exercise of this authority.

 

No Police Services Board approval required.

 

The Community Safety and Policing Act, 2024 This legislation — in force as of April 1, 2024 — requires every municipality in Ontario to prepare and adopt a Community Safety and Well-Being Plan, identifying community risk factors and strategies to reduce them.

 

A municipally controlled alternate response unit is not just permitted under this Act. It is its logical and intended fulfilment.

 

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Ministry of Health — Mobile Crisis Response Teams

 

The Ontario Ministry of Health has already developed a Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team framework in partnership with the Ministry of the Solicitor General.

 

The model is built. The funding structure exists.

 

Mississauga does not need to design a new system.

 

It needs a Mayor willing to pick up the phone and deploy it.

 

What the Mississauga Community Response Service looks like.

 

A city-controlled, non-police community intervention unit.

 

It routes health and social service calls away from the police dispatch system and toward appropriately trained civilian responders.

 

It operates alongside,  not instead of,  the existing police service.

 

It does not replace any existing position or cut any existing service.

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How a call is handled:

  1. A resident calls 911 or 211 reporting a mental health crisis, wellness check, substance use situation, or social service need.

  2. The call is triaged by dispatch. Where no immediate criminal threat or violence is present, the call routes to the Mississauga Community Response Service — not to a police unit.

  3. A trained civilian team — social workers, mental health workers, crisis counsellors — responds. Directly. Promptly. With the right tools for the situation.

  4. Police remain available and are called only when genuinely needed. Their time, budget, and capacity are protected for the calls that actually require law enforcement.

 

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  • The Chief of Police identified the problem.

  • The legislation authorizes the solution.

  • The province has built the framework.

 

What has been missing is a Mayor willing to lead.

 

The city does not do this alone. It convenes and leads.

 

The Mississauga Community Response Service brings together partners that already exist, already have mandates, and already have funding — but have never been coordinated under a single city-led framework.

 

Peel Regional Police Operational partner.

 

Shares dispatch data and co-ordinates triage.

 

Their budget pressure is relieved , not increased.

Trillium Health Partners  Clinical partner. Mental health crisis workers, follow-up care, and hospital diversion support.

 

Region of Peel Social Services , Housing, income support, and long-term case management for residents in chronic crisis.

 

Ontario Ministry of Health,  Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team framework and provincial co-funding already available.

 

Community Non-Profits Over 100 organizations in the Peel Metamorphosis Network already doing this work , underfunded and under-coordinated.

211 Ontario.... The existing non-emergency community helpline becomes the front door for non-criminal calls, reducing 911 volume immediately.

 

The city provides the structure.

 

  • What this means for every Mississauga resident.

  • Faster response — the right team arrives for the right call. Not a police officer managing a situation outside their training. A crisis worker who does this every day.

  • Better outcomes ,  mental health crises de-escalated.

  • Families kept together. Residents connected to housing, health, and support , not just a police report.

  • Lower costs ,  police budget pressure reduced. Social service calls handled by social service workers.

  • The 80% problem addressed at appropriate cost.

  • City control , Mississauga owns this service. Directs it. Funds it. Measures it.

  • Accountable to residents — not to a regional board or a provincial ministry.

 

This is what taking ownership of our community needs looks like.

 

Not another letter to Queen's Park. Not another report waiting on a provincial decision.

 

A Mayor who looks at the problem, looks at the authority, looks at the partners — and says: we start Monday.

 

Our community. Our problem. Our solution.

 

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

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Our community, Our problem, Our solution

SHORTAGE OF AMBULANCES 

People in Mississauga have waited on roadsides, in driveways, and on kitchen floors for ambulances that were understaffed, delayed, or trapped at hospital offload.

In Mississauga, we do not stand by while people suffer.

 

Long before there was an Ambulance Act, long before there were licensed operators and regulatory frameworks, human beings carried each other to safety.

 

That instinct ,  to act, to help, to refuse to stand by while someone suffers ,  is not a legal principle. It is the foundation of what a community actually is.

 

This is not a policy position.

 

It is a moral commitment.

 

And it starts the day this Mayor takes office.

 

The cost of inaction is measured in lives.

People in Mississauga have waited on roadsides, in driveways, and on kitchen floors for ambulances that were understaffed, delayed, or trapped at hospital.

Time waiting for an ambulance is critical. 

 Survival from cardiac arrest drops by 7 to 10 percent for every minute that passes without CPR or defibrillation.

In Peel, up to 23 ambulances are short of what the service needs.

 

Up to 17 ambulances sit idle every day due to unfilled shifts.

 

SOURCE: Toronto Paramedic Services Audit 2024 · Peel Region Budget Documents 2025 ·

 

National Institutes of Health Emergency Medical Research

 

Peel paramedics earn up to $30,000 less than police officers and firefighters at comparable risk.

 

The Mississauga ambulance dispatch centre has had documented performance failures for nearly 20 years.

 

The Province has not acted.

 

SOURCE: SecondStreet.org 2025 · The Pointer January 2025 · Peel Regional Council Staff Report February 2024

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Mississauga does not need to wait for the Province to act.

 

The legal framework to protect emergency personnel who transport patients in life-threatening situations , when no ambulance is available,  already exists in Ontario law. What has been missing is the will to use it.

 

Ontario Good Samaritan Act, 2001 Any person who provides emergency medical aid in good faith and without gross negligence cannot be held liable for damages. A trained paramedic on a fire crew transporting a critically ill patient with no ambulance available is the definition of good faith emergency action. No court in Ontario would find otherwise.

 

Ontario Health Care Consent Act — Implied Consent Treatment of an incapable person in an emergency is lawful when delay would prolong their suffering or put them at risk of serious bodily harm. For cardiac arrest, stroke, or severe trauma — consent is implied by law. No form required. Transport is authorised by the Act itself.

 

Conscious Patient Consent — Patient Autonomy A conscious patient has the absolute right to direct their own care. A signed release form requesting transport by available emergency personnel is that patient exercising their legal right under the Health Care Consent Act. The city will have that form on every fire apparatus and in every patrol vehicle.

 

Substitute Decision Maker When a patient is incapacitated and next of kin are present, they may authorise emergency transport as substitute decision maker. The consent protocol captures this. It covers every scenario except a patient alone and unconscious — for whom implied consent already applies.

 

Colour of Right and Mens Rea Criminal or regulatory liability requires a guilty mind. A fire crew acting in good faith, with documented consent or implied consent, in a life-threatening emergency, with no ambulance available — has no guilty intent. No prosecutor in Ontario would pursue this case. No court would convict. The moral and legal ground is solid.

 

Municipal Act, 2001 — Fiscal Responsibility and Good Government The Municipal Act requires municipalities to be responsible and accountable governments providing good government and value for taxpayer dollars. A fire crew already on scene, already paid, already deployed — transporting a patient at no additional cost — is the definition of fiscally responsible service delivery. Leaving that patient to wait while their condition deteriorates into critical care or worse costs the health system, the family, and the community enormously. The Mayor's duty to provide good government does not merely permit this action. It compels it.

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The Mississauga Emergency Transport Consent Protocol.

 

On day one, I will  directs the City Solicitor and the Fire Chief to develop and deploy a city-issued Emergency Transport Consent Protocol. Every fire apparatus carries it. Every patrol vehicle carries it. Every Municipal Law Enforcement Officer carries it.

 

Conscious patient Patient signs the form. States that no ambulance is available or has been delayed beyond safe waiting time. Requests transport by present emergency personnel. Directs their own care under the Health Care Consent Act. Personnel transport. Form filed. Incident documented.

 

Incapacitated patient , next of kin present Next of kin signs as Substitute Decision Maker. Authorises transport under the Health Care Consent Act substitute decision framework. Personnel transport. Form filed. Incident documented.

 

Incapacitated patient ,  alone Implied consent under the Health Care Consent Act applies directly. No form required. Delay to obtain consent would prolong suffering or risk serious bodily harm. Personnel transport. Incident documented. This is the clearest case of all ,  the law is unambiguous.

This protocol does not require provincial approval. It does not require an Act of Parliament.

 

It requires a Mayor with the moral clarity to say , we will use every tool the law provides, and we will not apologise for saving lives while we wait for the law to catch up.

 

Mississauga Fire is ready. The Province just needs to act.

Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services is 100% city controlled. Fire crews already respond to medical emergencies under Ontario's tiered response framework — formally in place since the mid-1990s. Trained personnel are already on scene at cardiac arrests and trauma calls. The equipment is on the truck. The skills are there.

A Mississauga Fire deputy chief has already said publicly that under the current dispatch system, seriously injured patients can be left waiting on the roadway for hours with fire crews standing by but unable to transport. That gap costs lives. The consent protocol closes it immediately. The Ambulance Act amendment closes it permanently.

 

The formal demand to Queen's Park:

Amend the Ontario Ambulance Act to permit licensed paramedics serving with Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services to transport patients to hospital when no ambulance is available and response time has exceeded 15 minutes on a life-threatening call.

This request will be made publicly. Residents will be told exactly who is blocking it and why if the answer is no.

 

The complete plan. Starting day one.

 

Day One — Deploy the consent protocol City Solicitor and Fire Chief directed to develop and implement the Mississauga Emergency Transport Consent Protocol. Every apparatus and patrol vehicle equipped. Every officer trained. No provincial permission required. No delay justified.

 

Day One — Make the Ambulance Act demand publicly Formal written request to the Minister of Health to amend the Ambulance Act. Published on the city website. Sent to every Mississauga MPP. The clock starts. The public watches.

 

Month One — Demand ambulance dispatch control Formal request to transfer Mississauga CACC authority to Peel Region. Twenty years of provincial mismanagement ends. Ottawa and Toronto have this. Mississauga will have it.

 

Year One — Champion paramedic pay equity Close the $30,000 gap between paramedic and firefighter compensation at the regional council table. Closing the gap puts 17 ambulances back on the road every single day.

Year One — Expand community paramedicine Aggressively fund Peel's community paramedic programs — clinic visits, seniors wellness checks, long-term care support. Reduce 911 call volume. Keep people out of emergency rooms. Free ambulances for true emergencies.

 

What Mississauga residents will see.

No one abandoned. When a fire crew reaches you first and no ambulance is available, they will act. With your consent or under the law's implied consent. Without hesitation. Without waiting for permission that should have come decades ago.

More ambulances on the road. Closing the pay gap reduces absenteeism. Reduced absenteeism puts up to 17 ambulances back in daily service.

A dispatch centre accountable to Peel. Not a provincial ministry that has ignored two decades of documented performance failures.

A Mayor fulfilling their statutory duty. The Municipal Act requires good government and value for taxpayer dollars. A fire crew already on scene transporting a patient costs nothing additional. A patient left to deteriorate costs the system enormously.

 

Fiscal responsibility and moral responsibility point in exactly the same direction.

 

We are not a society of onlookers to the perils of others.

 

Every law on the books supports that instinct. Every piece of legislation cited here is downstream of it. The Good Samaritan Act did not create the moral duty to help. It recognised what every decent person already knew.

A Matulewicz mayoralty will act on that recognition. Every day. Without apology. Without waiting.

 

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

MORE TO COME FOR 2026 MAYORAL CAMPAIGN.

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MICHAEL MATULEWICZ

MISSISSAUGA MAYORAL CAMPAIGN 2026

 

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

No donors. No lobbyists. No consultants. Just 100,000 Mississauga residents demanding what they have already paid for.

Share this page. Talk to your neighbour. Use #GetReadyOntario.

 

THE MATH DOESN'T LIE.

For every dollar you pay in property taxes, only 37 cents comes back as city services — roads, parks, fire stations, libraries, transit.

The Ontario average is 76 cents.

Mississauga pays 62% of the entire Peel Regional Police budget. Brampton pays 38% — with nearly the same population.

That gap costs Mississauga $500 million every year.

Over twenty years, that is $10 billion in services that were promised, documented, appealed — and never delivered.

SOURCE: City of Mississauga 2025 Budget · The Pointer 2024 · Metamorphosis Network Independent Analysis

 

WHAT $10 BILLION LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT'S MISSING.

Paramedics who don't arrive in time. Up to 23 ambulances short of what Peel needs. Up to 17 sitting idle daily due to unfilled shifts — because paramedics earn $30,000 less than comparable first responders.

Police officers spending 80% of their shift on mental health calls, housing crises, and wellness checks — not crime.

Mental health beds that aren't there when families need them.

Fire stations understaffed. Community programs unfunded. A hospital expansion turned away.

This is not a funding problem. It is a political choice — made in Queen's Park, paid for by you.

 

WHAT 100,000 VOTES WILL DO.

The requests are on record. The appeals are documented. The answers from Queen's Park have been inadequate — year after year, government after government.

One hundred thousand Mississauga voters saying the same thing at the same time is a force that cannot be outspent, ignored, or dismissed.

When Mississauga receives fair provincial funding:

  • Municipal taxes reduce by 8 to 15% annually

  • Police, fire, ambulance, and mental health services improve

  • Not because we spend more — but because we finally receive what we have already paid for

No new taxes. No cuts. Just fairness.

 

THIS IS NOT MY CAMPAIGN.

Canada's strength is its communities.

When people feel safe in their neighbourhoods — when emergency services arrive, when no one goes hungry or homeless or forgotten, when health care and social support are present and working — communities become resilient.

They become places worth protecting. Worth belonging to.

They close the door on criminal recruitment, radicalization, and the politics of blame.

The promise that drew people to Canada — a safer life, a fair chance, a country that includes rather than excludes — is not a sentiment. It is a public safety strategy.

To my neighbours in Erin Mills and across Mississauga — new and old — you breathe life into our true Canadian values every single day. I am eternally grateful.

TOGETHER, we can do this.

Forward this page. Talk to your neighbour. Use your social media. #GetReadyOntario

 

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

Michael Matulewicz — Mayoral Candidate, Mississauga 2026 getreadyontario.com

 

OUR COMMUNITY. OUR PROBLEM. OUR SOLUTION.

A Mayor Who Takes Ownership.

Mississauga has spent decades writing letters, filing reports, and sending delegations to Queen's Park.

The problems remain.

What has been missing is not documentation. Not legislation. Not even funding frameworks — most of those already exist.

What has been missing is a Mayor willing to use the tools the law already provides — on behalf of the people who live here.

Three issues. Three solutions. All connected to one root cause.

Mississauga is not getting its money back.

Fix that first. Everything else follows.

 

 

PAGE ONE: FAIR FUNDING

The Root of Every Problem. The Start of Every Solution.

 

THE SIMPLE TRUTH.

For every dollar you pay in property taxes, only 37 cents comes back to Mississauga as city services.

Roads. Parks. Fire stations. Libraries. Transit.

37 cents.

The Ontario average is 76 cents.

That is not a rounding error. That is not an accounting quirk.

That is your money — sitting in Queen's Park — while your ambulances sit understaffed, your mental health beds go unfilled, and your community programs go unfunded.

SOURCE: City of Mississauga 2025 Budget · The Pointer, November 2024 · Metamorphosis Network Independent Analysis

 

THE NUMBERS.

Mississauga pays 62% of the entire Peel Regional Police budget.

Brampton pays 38% — with nearly the same population.

That imbalance is locked in by a funding formula based on 2016 property values that no longer reflect reality.

The result: a provincial funding gap of $868 million per year — $575 out of every resident's pocket, every single year.

Mississauga's share of that shortfall is just under $500 million annually.

 

THE TWENTY-YEAR BILL.

This is not a new problem.

It has been documented. Appealed. Ignored. For over two decades.

At $500 million per year, over twenty years, Mississauga has been shorted an estimated $10 billion in community funding it was owed and never received.

That is a generation of services never built, never staffed, never delivered to you.

Paramedics who didn't arrive. Mental health beds that weren't there. Fire stations understaffed. A hospital expansion turned away. Community programs cut before they started.

That is not a funding gap.

That is a political choice — made in Queen's Park, paid for on your street.

SOURCE: Metamorphosis Network / Blueprint ADE · City of Mississauga budget submissions · The Pointer, 2024

 

WHAT FAIR FUNDING DELIVERS.

When Mississauga receives its fair share — not more, exactly its share — the math is straightforward.

Municipal taxes reduce by 8 to 15% annually.

Police, fire, ambulance, mental health, and social services improve — not because we spend more, but because we finally receive what residents have already paid for.

No new taxes. No cuts. Just fairness.

Every other comparable community in Ontario already receives this.

We are not asking for more than our share.

We are done asking politely.

 

THE ONLY TOOL LEFT.

The requests are on record. The appeals are documented. Queen's Park has been inadequate — year after year, government after government.

Not another report. Not another delegation that returns empty-handed.

One hundred thousand Mississauga voters saying the same thing at the same time.

That is a force that cannot be outspent, ignored, or dismissed.

This campaign accepts no donations. No lobbyists. No consultants.

What established parties spend millions trying to manufacture — public opinion — already exists here.

It does not need to be bought.

It needs to be counted.

Politicians respond to one thing reliably.

Votes.

Forward this page. Talk to your neighbour. #GetReadyOntario — getreadyontario.com

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

Michael Matulewicz — Mayoral Candidate, Mississauga 2026

 

 

PAGE TWO: POLICING & COMMUNITY CRISIS RESPONSE

What Fair Funding Makes Possible.

 

THE PROBLEM.

Every day in Mississauga, people in mental health crisis, housing distress, and social emergency dial 911.

A police officer arrives.

Not because the situation is criminal. Because there is no one else to send.

The Peel Regional Police Chief's own budget confirms it: 80% of calls for service are not criminal in nature.

Health calls. Wellness checks. Housing crises. Mental health emergencies.

Highly trained officers — at full police cost — attending calls that trained health and social workers could handle better, faster, and for far less.

This is not a policing failure. It is a community infrastructure failure. And it drives the police budget higher every single year.

SOURCE: Peel Regional Police budget submissions · House of Commons Economics of Policing Report

 

THE PROOF.

Toronto's Community Crisis Service handled 6,827 calls in its first period of operation.

Only 2.2% required police.

Seventy-eight percent resolved entirely without police — faster, better, cheaper.

SOURCE: City of Toronto Social Development Division · Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being, 2026

 

THE AUTHORITY ALREADY EXISTS.

No new legislation required. No provincial permission needed.

The Municipal Act, 2001 gives Mississauga direct authority to provide any service necessary for public health, safety, and well-being.

The Community Safety and Policing Act, 2024 requires every Ontario municipality to have a Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. A city-run crisis response service is its logical fulfilment.

The Ontario Ministry of Health has already built a Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team framework. The model exists. The funding structure exists.

Mississauga does not need to design a new system. It needs a Mayor willing to deploy it.

 

THE SOLUTION.

A city-controlled, non-police community intervention unit. Trained civilian responders — social workers, mental health workers, crisis counsellors — handling the 80% of calls that don't need a badge and a gun.

Operating alongside police. Not replacing them.

Partners already in place: Peel Regional Police, Trillium Health Partners, Region of Peel Social Services, Ontario Ministry of Health, over 100 community non-profits, and 211 Ontario as the front door for non-criminal calls.

Result: Faster response. Better outcomes. Lower cost. A police service freed to focus on actual crime.

This is what fair funding makes possible. This is what a Mayor with a mandate delivers.

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

 

 

PAGE THREE: AMBULANCE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE

No One Gets Left Behind.

 

THE PROBLEM.

People in Mississauga have waited on roadsides, in driveways, and on kitchen floors for ambulances that were understaffed, delayed, or trapped at hospital.

Survival from cardiac arrest drops 7 to 10% for every minute without CPR or defibrillation.

That is not a statistic. That is someone's parent. Someone's neighbour.

In Peel, up to 23 ambulances short of what the service needs.

Up to 17 ambulances idle every day — because paramedics earn $30,000 less than firefighters doing comparable work.

Documented dispatch failures for nearly 20 years.

The Province has not acted.

SOURCE: Toronto Paramedic Services Audit 2024 · Peel Region Budget Documents 2025 · The Pointer January 2025

 

THE MORAL COMMITMENT.

Long before there was an Ambulance Act, human beings carried each other to safety.

That instinct — to act, to help, to refuse to stand by while someone suffers — is not a legal principle.

It is the foundation of what a community actually is.

In Mississauga, we do not stand by while people suffer. This starts the day this Mayor takes office.

 

THE AUTHORITY ALREADY EXISTS.

The legal framework to act — when no ambulance is available — already exists in Ontario law.

The Good Samaritan Act protects emergency aid given in good faith. The Health Care Consent Act authorises transport in life-threatening emergencies — implied consent when a patient is incapacitated, expressed consent when they are conscious.

A signed release form on every fire apparatus and patrol vehicle. Every scenario covered. No provincial approval required.

Day One — Emergency Transport Consent Protocol deployed. City Solicitor and Fire Chief directed. Every apparatus equipped. Every officer trained.

Day One — Formal written demand to the Minister of Health: amend the Ambulance Act to permit licensed Mississauga Fire paramedics to transport patients when no ambulance is available and response exceeds 15 minutes on a life-threatening call. Published publicly. Every Mississauga MPP notified. The clock starts.

Month One — Formal request to transfer dispatch authority to Peel Region. Twenty years of provincial mismanagement ends.

Year One — Champion paramedic pay equity. Close the $30,000 gap. Put 17 ambulances back on the road daily.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE.

Fiscal responsibility and moral responsibility point in exactly the same direction.

A fire crew already on scene, already paid, transporting a patient — costs nothing additional.

A patient left to deteriorate — costs the system enormously, and the family everything.

We are not a society of onlookers.

A Matulewicz mayoralty will act. Every day. Without apology. Without waiting.

Forward this page. Talk to your neighbour. #GetReadyOntario — getreadyontario.com

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

Michael Matulewicz — Mayoral Candidate, Mississauga 2026

 

 

Our Community. Our Problem. Our Solution.

 

THE QUESTION EVERY VOTER DESERVES AN ANSWER TO.

Every plan needs a price tag.

Every promise needs a funding source.

Here is ours — plain, specific, and already in motion in communities across Ontario.

The money to launch Mississauga's community crisis response service does not require a tax increase. It does not require waiting on Queen's Park. It does not require inventing something new.

It requires a Mayor who treats grant applications as a core function of the job — and files them.

 

THE CORE PROBLEM WE ARE SOLVING.

Community crisis response and policing must be funded at the same time or neither works.

You cannot redirect 80% of calls away from police without funding the civilian teams to receive them. And you cannot fund civilian teams without maintaining the police service that runs alongside them.

This has been the excuse for inaction for twenty years.

It is not a funding problem. It is a leadership problem.

The programs to fund both sides simultaneously already exist. They are active. They are paying out to other Ontario communities right now. Mississauga has simply never had a Mayor who filed the applications.

 

THE PROVINCIAL FUNDING — ACTIVE RIGHT NOW.

Ontario Mobile Crisis Response Team Enhancement Grant

This is the most direct match for what Mississauga needs.

The Ontario government is currently distributing $9 million across 36 police services and OPP detachments for 2025–26 and 2026–27 — specifically to fund crisis workers embedded alongside police on mental health and addictions calls.

Individual community awards range from $120,000 to over $426,000 over two years. Every recipient city has documented the same problem Mississauga has: mental health calls rising sharply, police absorbing the cost, civilian support absent.

Peel Regional Police and the City of Mississauga — in partnership — are eligible to apply. This funds the police side of the equation on day one.

Ontario Safer and Vital Communities Grant

Available to community-based non-profit organizations working on local safety and well-being — mental health, addictions, housing crises, social emergencies.

Over 100 non-profit organizations are already operating in the Peel Metamorphosis Network, doing exactly this work — underfunded and unco-ordinated. A Mississauga mayor who convenes them under one city-led framework creates a far stronger grant application than any single organization can submit alone.

This funds the community side of the equation — simultaneously.

Ontario Community Safety and Well-Being Planning Framework

Mississauga is already legally required under the Community Safety and Policing Act to have a Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. Provincial grant funding exists specifically to turn that plan into an operational service rather than a document on a shelf.

We are not starting from zero. We are activating what already exists.

 

THE FEDERAL FUNDING — TWO KEY PROGRAMS.

Public Safety Canada — Building Safer Communities Fund

Funds local, targeted crime prevention and intervention initiatives — specifically including at-risk youth diversion, mental health intervention, and community safety partnerships with municipal governments and police services.

A Mississauga Community Response Service with a youth diversion component qualifies directly.

Public Safety Canada — Community Resilience Fund

Open to municipal governments, regional governments, local police services and their governing authorities, and community non-profit organizations.

The City of Mississauga, Peel Regional Police, and the Peel Metamorphosis Network non-profits are all eligible. A joint application from all three is precisely what this program is designed to fund — and it would be among the strongest applications in the country.

 

THE NATIONAL MOMENTUM IS ALREADY MOVING.

This is not a Mississauga-only conversation.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities — the national voice of every city and town in Canada — is actively recommending that the federal government expand funding for mental health, substance use, and crisis response partnerships specifically to reduce pressure on police.

Every major police service in Canada is dealing with the same 80% problem. Every city is absorbing the same cost. The national policy is moving toward exactly the model Mississauga is ready to launch.

A Mayor who has already built and deployed this service makes Mississauga a national proof of concept — and a priority recipient when the next wave of federal funding flows.

 

HOW THE FUNDING STACK WORKS.

Day One — Apply for the MCRT Enhancement Grant. Crisis workers embedded with Peel Regional Police. The police side funded immediately. No new legislation. No provincial permission. Apply, receive, deploy.

Day One — Co-ordinate the Peel Metamorphosis Network. Over 100 non-profit organizations already doing this work brought under one city-led framework. Joint application to the Safer and Vital Communities Grant filed within 90 days. The community side funded simultaneously.

Within 90 Days — Federal applications filed. City of Mississauga, Peel Regional Police, and the Metamorphosis Network apply jointly to the Building Safer Communities Fund and the Community Resilience Fund. A coalition of this size and credibility does not get turned away.

Year Two Onward — The fair funding dividend. When 100,000 Mississauga votes produce results at Queen's Park — and they will — the $500 million annual shortfall begins to close. A fraction of that recaptured funding permanently sustains the service. No grant dependency. No annual uncertainty. Just the city receiving what it already paid for, and spending it where it is needed.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE.

No new taxes.

No waiting on the province to act first.

No invented funding sources or optimistic projections.

Real programs. Active grant windows. Eligible applicants already in place.

What has been missing is a Mayor who walks into the office on day one and says:

We are filing every application. We are co-ordinating every partner. We are not leaving money on the table that other communities are already collecting.

That is not a campaign promise.

That is a day-one action.

 

Forward this page. Talk to your neighbour. #GetReadyOntario — getreadyontario.com

YOUR VOTE IS THE ONLY CURRENCY THIS CAMPAIGN ACCEPTS.

Michael Matulewicz — Mayoral Candidate, Mississauga 2026

MORE TO COME

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