TORONTO — Mississauga city council voted unanimously Wednesday to freeze new data centres for one year, and up to two, while staff rewrite official-plan and zoning rules on power, water and noise, after councillors decided they had already heard enough from residents and skipped further deputations.The interim control bylaw hits facilities drawing more than 10 megawatts — a threshold the city equates to roughly 10,000 homes — and leaves in limbo a 40-megawatt, two-storey Prologis project on Tenth Line W. in Meadowvale Business Park, a hall residents have described as the size of three football fields. Mayor Carolyn Parrish told people who had lined up to speak that they already had what they wanted, Ward 9 Coun. Martin Reid, who sponsored the freeze, said the city had “heard your voice loud and clear,” and Ward 7 Coun. Dipika Damerla told the gallery, “This is your win today.” Neighbours spent the summer warning that hyperscale cooling would strain local water, that diesel backups would run at night, and that a 40-megawatt load would land on feeders never built for AI halls, for few permanent jobs.Prologis said it is disappointed and is considering its next steps, and added that it “remains committed to Mississauga and confident that a carefully planned data centre in Meadowvale Business Park can bring significant long-term economic benefits to the community.” City staff have not said whether an application already in the pipe is dead or only paused..Mississauga now sits with Oakville, which passed Ontario’s first municipal pause last month, while Hamilton and Burlington studied the same file and refused a freeze. Queen’s Park is not on pause. Last month the province released a draft data-centre framework that would make large sites cover their own electricity costs and pay a premium industrial rate, and Premier Doug Ford told a North York scrum the same day that Ontario still wants the build-out “full steam ahead,” but with “strict parameters.”Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli said Bill 40 gives the province the power to decide who can plug in where, that closed-loop water and Canadian-owned systems get preference, and that Queen’s Park is offering “no financial incentives” to data centres. Parrish voted for the freeze and still warned on Sept. 9 that tariff pressure will push Ottawa and the province to “keep our databases here in Canada,” which means “pressure on us to accept data centres whether we like it or not.” The Ford government is still selling Ontario as a seller’s market for the same plants at the highest power price in the province.Staff will bring an interim planning report this fall, Damerla and former mayor Bonnie Crombie — both running for mayor — have already endorsed the bylaw, while Prologis has not said whether it will wait out the study or test it.
