Lisgar flooding and the fourth pumping station

Candidates on record

3 candidates are on record on this issue. Every candidate in this race is searched the same way. Only candidates who have said something in public on this issue are named here, with a link to the source; the others are counted by race below. The full record for every candidate is on Candidates.

The full story

The record behind the questions, with a source at each claim.

Flooding in Lisgar dates to 2008. In the summer of 2024 two storms described as “once-in-a-century” (106mm of rain on July 16, and up to 170mm across parts of Mississauga and the GTA on August 17 and 18) left Lisgar among the areas severely impacted; in Ward 10 as a whole, about 500 homes were flooded. Residents cite roughly $125 million in cumulative losses — a residents’-association figure, not an independently audited City number, and we cite it as such.

As of June 30, 2026, two of the four planned automated pumping stations were operating: the first at Cactus Gate since 2021, the second at Smoke Tree since 2025, both north along Sixteen Mile Creek. A third, immediately south of Doug Leavens Boulevard, was expected to be fully operational in July 2026 — at that date its control panel had been tested and the remaining equipment was still being tested. The fourth — requested to be fast-tracked to 2026 — was, as INsauga reported on June 30, 2026 citing an earlier City statement, on track to open in 2027, despite direct resident appeals including a formal letter to the Mayor, council and senior City staff asking her to use her strong-mayor powers.

Where the fourth actually stands. Ward 10 Councillor Sue McFadden told residents on June 30, 2026 that its detailed design is complete and construction was scheduled to begin later that summer, at the east edge of Osprey Marsh just south of Osprey Boulevard. That is the most specific public answer we have found, searching as of 2026-10-02, to the question this page puts to candidates — and it is a councillor’s newsletter reported by one outlet, not a City report, so read it as a status update rather than a commitment.

Corrected 2026-08-09. This page previously said “three of four planned automated pumping stations are built.” Its own fact-check entry never said that — the ledger had recorded “Two of four planned pumping stations were operational by 2025, a third expected mid-2026” since July 29. The page and the ledger disagreed for eleven days and the ledger was the correct half. Nothing sourced the completion claim; it asserted a finished state that no source established. See corrections — a fix in one twin is not a fix.

The money is not the obstacle. At the September 2025 council meeting where residents asked for the fourth station to be fast-tracked, City director Emma Calvert said the delay was not a funding issue — budgets had been allocated annually — and explained that the four stations proceed individually through design, tender and construction, which is what sets the schedule. The Pointer reported that the City had attributed the 2027 date to “procurement delays”, and the City’s September 12, 2025 statement said a pre-qualification for the fourth station was then in-market. On September 12, 2025, in a statement to The Pointer, the City said council had approved $5.6 million for the fourth station’s design and construction, with construction expected to start in 2026. We have found that figure only in The Pointer’s report, not in a City document.

That matters for what there is to ask about. If a project is late because it is unfunded, the question is a budget question and a councillor can only lobby. If it is late because of how the work is sequenced and procured, the question is about process and timelines — which council does control, and which a candidate can be asked to commit to.

A different question is being asked inside the City, and it is a bigger one

Added 2026-09-05. Everything above treats Lisgar as a delivery problem: four stations were planned, two were running as of June 30, 2026, and the fourth is late. The City’s own Stormwater Advisory Committee has been asking something else — whether the assumptions the area was designed on still hold.

On 17 February 2026, citizen member Paul Bunyard, as the minutes record it, asked “if there has been an analysis on whether creek banks could overtop and flood homes along the main street in Lisgar, given upstream changes and shifts since the area’s original design.” He went on to ask who is responsible for monitoring those changes and protecting residents.

Part of the reply went outside the City. To the first question, a City manager replied that the conservation authorities are undertaking flood plain analysis, using advanced modelling, to update the flood lines, with City staff included on the committee doing the work; to the second, the same manager spoke to the City’s responsibility for managing stormwater and to the conservation authorities. The minutes do not say which flood lines are being updated or whether Lisgar’s are among them — but in that work Mississauga is a participant rather than the author.

Then the committee built itself a way to keep asking. On 17 February it voted to establish a subcommittee to make site visits to stormwater infrastructure and discuss technical matters related to flood control; members were appointed on 27 April and a third added on 8 June. By 8 June 2026 that subcommittee was discussing Lisgar directly. Reporting on those discussions, Bunyard spoke to “the need for a better understanding of conservation area limits, creek flow, flood lines, and the interface between subdivision design and larger storm events”, and suggested exploring whether upstream holding or retention in the broader area is possible.

And it asked for a third conservation authority. The committee directed staff to coordinate a subcommittee meeting with Conservation Halton to examine the Lisgar-area flooding issues. Conservation Halton’s watershed takes in about 4% of Mississauga, and Mississauga has two members on its board, appointed by the Region of Peel on 8 December 2022 (Resolution 2022-841): Councillor Sue McFadden, who represents Ward 10, and Councillor Alvin Tedjo. Mississauga councillors also sit on Credit Valley Conservation and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, all three now subject to direction by a provincial agency. Why Conservation Halton is the body being asked about Lisgar is not stated in the minutes. The pumping stations on this page sit along Sixteen Mile Creek, and Conservation Halton gave notice in October 2025 of a public engagement session for an East Sixteen Mile Creek Flood Hazard Mapping Study; whether that study covers Lisgar is not established here.

Corrected 2026-10-08. This passage said Mississauga appoints its councillors to Credit Valley and Toronto and Region “and not, so far as we have established, to Conservation Halton”. Mississauga has two members on Conservation Halton, and the Region of Peel makes the appointments to all three authorities.

The reason this belongs on a page about a late pumping station: the four stations are designed to pump water out of the foundation drain collector sewers when it reaches a pre-determined level, reducing basement water infiltration. The committee’s question is a different one: whether the creek itself could overtop and flood homes. So “when will it be finished” is only half the question. The other half is whether the flood protection planned for Lisgar still answers that risk, and who decides that — and on the record so far, the flood-line part of that work is being done by the conservation authorities, with City staff on the committee doing it.