Mayor Linda Jeffrey made no apologies for the soured relations on council during much of the term.

“I was elected to serve as mayor with a mandate to do things differently and every now and then I may ruffle some people’s feathers when I don’t agree with them — they need to just get over it,” Jeffrey told some 400 local business and community leaders during her State of the City address Tuesday (Feb. 6).

Jeffrey has struggled to see through her legislative agenda in a term stifled by council’s inability to reach consensus on a number of important files facing one of Canada’s most diverse and rapidly growing communities.

Jeffrey has been handed crucial defeats in her inaugural term as a result of fractured relations on council including the 2015 decision to reject the province’s preferred route for a light rail transit line into the downtown as well as her recent push for a permanent auditor general.

During Tuesday’s speech — the last address to business leaders before the municipal election — Jeffrey called recent social media conversations accusing her of refusing to work with councillors “a false narrative” and threw out to critics that she won't be “a rubber stamp just to get along."

“I am prepared to do the heavy lifting, to see our city survive, adapt and thrive and my door is always open for those that want to meet and work together in our city’s best interests.”

With little support on council, Jeffrey is focused on the next term to see her vision through. The mayor’s closest allies haven’t made a secret of her efforts to line up a slate of candidates to run against her current council foes.

Hosted annually by the Brampton board of trade, the mayor’s State of the City address provides the business community an opportunity to hear from the mayor on opportunities and challenges facing Brampton, as well as some of the projects, initiatives and announcements in store for the coming year.

In the last major speech to local leaders before the election campaign officially kicks into high gear, Jeffrey tackled a range of issues during her 20-minute speech including taxation, the strain on local health care services and efforts this term to quell public concerns over increasing crime by allocating more financial resources to police.

Jeffrey also spoke about major projects currently underway. Jeffrey told the crowd gathered at Millennium Gardens Banquet Centre Tuesday that a new university campus led by Toronto’s Ryerson University will be a “major game changer” for Brampton and a key driver of new economic activity for a city that has stagnated on attracting job growth since the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector a decade ago.