Biggest hospital in Canada will be built in Mississauga with $390M from taxpayers

Mississauga taxpayers will pick up $390 million of the multibillion-dollar tab for a new, state-of-the-art hospital expected to open in the city in 2033, city council decided on Wednesday.

In somewhat reluctantly — but unanimously — approving the significant financial contribution, councillors expressed frustration at what they view is yet another example of Mississauga taxpayers being unfairly burdened by a government system that chronically underfunds and overtaxes Canada’s seventh-largest city.

Mayor Carolyn Parrish, who tabled the motion to help fund construction of The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, said the 22-storey facility that’ll be the largest in Canada when completed is badly needed and too important to the community for the city not to step up to the plate financially.

Still, she added that on principle, “I strongly believe health care is a federal and provincial (government) matter.”

Ward 6 Coun. Joe Horneck agreed, adding “it’s tough medicine to take for a city to have to come forward” and help foot part of the bill “on the taxpayer’s back.”

Coun. Dipika Damerla, who represents Ward 7, pointed out “the double standard (displayed by the province) is especially glaring” given a new hospital being built in Toronto with no money being asked of taxpayers is located right on Mississauga’s border with Etobicoke.

Mayor Carolyn Parrish says hospital funding should be the responsibility of provincial and federal governments and not local taxpayers.

Still, acknowledging the dire need for the new hospital in Mississauga, all councillors agreed to contribute the cash for its construction. It will replace the current Mississauga Hospital at Hurontario Street and The Queensway and is being built on the same site.

The shovel is expected to go in the ground later this spring with a completion date anticipated for 2033.

Citing budget pressures and what would be an unfair burden on Mississauga taxpayers, the mayor and city councillors last October told local hospital officials no contribution from the City of Mississauga — let alone the $450 million being asked for — was forthcoming.

Instead, the city asked the provincial government, already committed to as much as 85 per cent of the funding, to pick up a larger chunk of the bill, which is expected to be “in the billions” of dollars.

Subsequent negotiations reduced the $450 million amount to $390 million, a figure Parrish can live with to get the hospital built and opened on time.

The city contribution will be paid by Jan. 1, 2033 and funded through an annual hospital levy of as much as one per cent on residents’ property tax bills starting in 2028.

Trillium Health Partners president and CEO Karli Farrow, shown here at Wednesday’s city council meeting, says she’s grateful to the City of Mississauga for its financial contribution.

In asking the city for money last fall, Trillium Health Partners president and CEO Karli Farrow said the health-care network had already confirmed commitments of over $825 million toward the local share through contributions from the hospital and donations via its fundraising arm, the Trillium Health Partners Foundation.

Since then, THP, the umbrella organization that oversees Mississauga Hospital and Credit Valley Hospital in addition to the Queensway Health Centre on the Etobicoke-Mississauga border, came up with additional funding that allowed the ask of the city to be reduced to $390 million, Parrish said at Wednesday’s council meeting.

Parrish also noted in her motion that Trillium’s detailed local share plan, including the contribution from the city, must be approved by its board of directors by the end of this week.

The motion from the mayor also pointed out, among other things, the new hospital:

• will, through its construction, create some 3,000 construction jobs and contribute about $1 billion to the local economy over the next 10 years
• will be the largest community-based teaching hospital in Canada at 2.8 million square feet and with 950 beds and 23 operating rooms
• will host an anticipated 1.7 million patient visits annually
• will add 2,400 health-care support staff and some 400 doctors to its ranks