Four years ago, Linda Jeffrey was out on the campaign trail for mayor of Brampton with a controversial message.

"I hope people say, on a Friday or Saturday night, 'Hey, let's do something fun, let's go to Brampton,'" she remembers while campaigning for a second term in the sweltering heat on Sunday.

"People laughed at me four years ago, but they're not laughing so much now."

The second-fastest growing city in the country, with an average population age of 35, Jeffrey says Brampton is "young, diverse and well-educated."

That may be part of the reason Ryerson University and Sheridan College chose Brampton to build a joint campus and innovation hub, which is expected to open in September 2022.

We want to be the cool city. - Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey

"I want [residents] grown here, hired here, buying a house here, paying taxes here, having babies here," says the one-time Liberal MPP.

Currently, more than 60 per cent of Brampton's almost 600,000 residents commute for work, but Jeffrey says the new campus, which is expected to provide at least 2,000 new undergraduate spaces, will help change the city's reputation from "sleeping community" to a bustling urban centre.

"We want to be the cool city, too," she says, adding Drake's music video director and hometown hero Director X recently received a star on Brampton's Walk of Fame.

"I would argue that that makes us very cool," she laughs.

Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey introduces Director X at the Brampton Walk of Fame awards on Friday. (CBC)

Former PC leader in the running

Whether she'll get the chance to continue cultivating the cool is up to the voters, who have a lot to think about since former Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown entered the race on the last day of registration back in July.

This came after Premier Doug Ford's newly elected PC government moved to cancel the regional chair election in Peel — in which Brown had initially intended to run — as well in York, Muskoka and Niagara.

At the time, Jeffrey questioned his roots in the city, saying in a tweet that "the ink barely dried on [Brown's] lease before he decided to seek our city's highest office."

Last week, Brown hit back.

"I think if Linda Jeffrey is proud of her own record, then she'll campaign on her record instead of attacking others," he said.

While I welcome Mr. Brown’s entry into the race I would like to bring to the attention of Brampton voters that the ink barely dried on his lease before he decided to seek our city’s highest office. —@LindaJeffrey

Jeffrey says Brown's presence in the campaign doesn't bother her.

"I really don't worry about other candidates. I welcome everyone to the race," she insists, but adds she believes she has more "skin in the game" than Brown.

"Do you want somebody who's been here since the '80s and worked in a career that has helped the community, or do you want somebody who just came from outside?" she asks.

Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey speaks to constituents while on the campaign trail on Sunday. (Chris Langenzarde/CBC)

Brown has roots in Barrie, where he served as an MP during Stephen Harper's government and later as an MPP in the nearby riding of Simcoe North. He says he now lives in Brampton, with his fiance, "across from Gage Park" and that they will stay in the city even if he loses his bid for the mayor's seat.

"If I was serious about the job, I would have spent a lot more time in Brampton," Jeffrey says.

"I think anybody who signs up at the eleventh hour — who a few weeks before wanted to be regional chair — I don't know that you really are all in. I don't think you're invested in the city, and I'm completely invested."