The Meadowvale data centre

Candidates on record

2 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.

A data centre of roughly 220,000 square feet (220,015 in The Pointer and DCD; 229,000 in insauga and the National Observer) over two storeys is proposed at 7564 Tenth Line West, north of Argentia Road and beside the Black Walnut Trail neighbourhood in Meadowvale Business Park. The applicant is Prologis, a US-based industrial real-estate firm. The application was filed on December 8, 2025; in March 2026 the Planning and Development Committee, on staff’s recommendation, unanimously referred it back for revisions.

How big it is, is disputed — and this page previously gave only one side of it. Coverage has described the proposal as Mississauga’s first hyperscale data centre drawing 50 to 100 megawatts, and until August 2026 this page stated that as fact. Prologis disputes both parts. Its Senior Vice President of Data Centre Investments, Alireza Harandi, has said, as The Pointer reported on July 30, 2026, that the facility is not a hyperscale AI data centre, that peak demand would be 40 megawatts, and that there is no planned expansion. Prologis also says the design uses a closed-loop water system needing about 2,000 litres a day, after an initial fill of 275,000 litres to be purchased from the Region of Peel.

As of October 2, 2026 we have not found a City document that settles the power figure, so we state each figure and label its source. The gap matters: 40 megawatts and 100 megawatts are different projects for water, grid and noise, and every resident concern below is scaled by which number is right. A candidate asked about this should be asked which figure they are relying on. One thing the dispute does not decide: the interim control by-law applies from 10 megawatts of total peak demand, so the facility is above that line on both of the applicant’s own figures — 35 megawatts at peak, given by a Prologis vice-president at the June 25, 2026 town hall (insauga), and 40 megawatts (The Pointer, July 30, 2026) — as well as on the coverage’s. Nor is the site in the one area the by-law’s map exempts, which lies at Eglinton Avenue West and Ninth Line. The map is Schedule “A” to the by-law and you can check it yourself: the whole city is shaded as subject to the by-law, and a single hatched parcel on the city’s western edge is the only exempt land (the by-law and its map, PDF — Schedule “A” is on page 3, with Detail “A” enlarging the exempt parcel).

City staff had not objected in principle. Through the Committee of Adjustment and the Planning and Development Committee, staff found the proposal generally consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement and the Mississauga Official Plan, with no fundamental objection to the provisional proposal, as The Pointer reported on July 30, 2026 — though technical, heritage and environmental constraints were raised along the way, including staff’s need to analyse “emerging sectors”. Before September 16, 2026, Mississauga permitted data centres in Employment Areas; since then, the City says new facilities with a total peak power demand of 10 megawatts or more, including conversions or expansions of existing ones, are not permitted for up to a year. The City’s zoning framework does not define them separately: the City classifies them as Warehousing, Distribution and Wholesaling under the Official Plan, and as Warehouse/Distribution or Science and Technology Facilities under the Zoning By-law. Several already operate in the city.

It is one of two applications on the same land. Prologis filed a pair covering a 39-acre site: OZ 25-21 W9 for the data centre, and OZ 25-22 W9 for two single-storey distribution buildings on the adjacent parcel. The draft by-law prohibits the use proposed in the first; distribution buildings are not a use it prohibits.

A town hall on June 25, 2026 drew more than 200 people by press accounts (insauga: “over 200”; the National Observer: “more than 300”). Their concerns were specific: water consumption, electricity grid capacity and what it might do to household rates, noise, including from generators, heat, air quality, the Meadowvale Conservation Area, and how little technical detail had been provided. Separately, Conservation Halton noted that the site is adjacent to a tributary of Sixteen Mile Creek and may contain flooding and erosion hazards.

On July 29, 2026, after more than 20 deputations, council approved a motion directing staff to prepare an Interim Control By-law — one that would, if passed, prohibit new large-scale data centres city-wide for up to a year, extendable to two. Staff will also review the City’s planning rules for these facilities and recommend changes. The city-wide side of that decision is a separate Core Issue.

Whether this application is paused is not settled. Council passed the by-law on September 16, 2026. The draft put to Council — we have not read the executed text — excepts uses legally existing on the day it passes, exempts one area on its Schedule “A” map, and has no clause about applications already filed. The City’s announcement says the by-law “applies to applications for new major digital infrastructure facilities”, without saying whether that includes applications already filed. Corrected 2026-08-11: this page previously said the application was paused. The correction is recorded in the fact-check ledger.

The local question is narrower and sharper, and one half of it is now answered. The by-law passed on September 16. What remains unsettled is the other half — whether an Interim Control By-law reaches an application already filed and under technical review. The Council minutes of July 29, 2026 record staff, answering questions about the by-law, “noting that the development application would continue to proceed”; they do not say whether the by-law, once passed, bars the use the application proposes. The applicant raised exactly that objection at council, saying it was “prepared to refrain from filing an appeal” while its application continued through review; The Pointer reported this as a warning that it would appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The by-law put to Council does not settle it: its text excepts only uses legally existing on the day it passes, its map exempts one area that does not include this site, and it contains no clause about applications already filed. This page does not read more into that silence than the text says. Whether Council amended the by-law on the floor before passing it is not established — the document put to Council is the unexecuted form, with the by-law number and the passing date both blank, and on October 2, 2026 the City’s page for the meeting still carried the agenda, not minutes. What the by-law says is set out on the city-wide issue.

If it does reach the application, the live question becomes whether a proposal filed in December 2025 gets measured against rules not yet written, or against the rules it was filed under. That is the whole difference between a pause that changes an outcome and one that delays it.

The applicant has warned it will appeal. At the July 29 meeting Harandi told council the company would take the decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal, putting the question as “whether the study requires a city-wide prohibition that would also apply to an application already deemed complete and undergoing detailed technical review.” He also said Prologis was prepared to refrain from appealing if council instead had staff report back “no later than December” while the application continued through review; council directed staff to prepare the by-law. After the vote a company spokesperson told the National Observer (July 29, 2026): “We have not made a decision about an appeal and will consider next steps once Council completes its process.” That was a stated intention on July 29, 2026, not a filed appeal — but if one is filed, the by-law goes to the Ontario Land Tribunal, which can hear an appeal against an interim control by-law filed within 50 days of its passing, here by November 5, 2026 (Planning Act s.38(4)). The tribunal, not council, would then decide it, as it now decides the Erin Mills and Streetsville files; unlike the Erin Mills file, which was appealed because council had not decided it, here council has decided.

Separately, Peel Public Health said in July 2026 that it is reviewing the available evidence, with Public Health Ontario, on whether data centre operations raise public health considerations. No finding had been published when The Pointer reported the review on July 30, 2026.

Previously this entry recorded that no flashpoint had surfaced in Ward 9. That was wrong: this application was already eight months old and had drawn a town hall of more than 200 people. Corrected 2026-07-30.

Corrected 2026-09-27. This page said “Mississauga permits data centres in Employment Areas today” — true only before the September 16 by-law; that “City staff sent it back for revisions” — it was the Planning and Development Committee, on staff’s recommendation; that “more than 300 residents” attended the town hall — press accounts give over 200 and more than 300; that residents raised “effects on Sixteen Mile Creek” — that was Conservation Halton’s comment; and it described the passed by-law’s exception from the draft without saying so.

And a second correction, 2026-08-08, of a different kind. The first correction fixed an absence. This one fixes a one-sidedness: we called the proposal “hyperscale” at “50 to 100 megawatts” as though settled, when the applicant had disputed both on the record. The “hyperscale” framing came from The Pointer, July 4, 2026, and the megawatt range from Global News, July 29, 2026; The Pointer’s July 30 report carried the rebuttal. We built on the earlier coverage and had not read the July 30 report. Our own written rule says one article is not the series; this is what breaking it looks like.