Hazel McCallion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mayor McCallion was named as a sponsor for a World Vision Canada charity campaign Hazel's Hope, fighting AIDS in Africa.

Hazel McCallion, CM (born February 14, 1921) is the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada's sixth largest city. McCallion has been Mississauga's mayor since 1978. She is affectionately called "Hurricane Hazel" [1] by supporters as well as the media at large for her vibrant outspoken style of no-nonsense politics.

She is one of Canada's best known and longest serving mayors. At the age of 85, she was easily re-elected in November 2006 for her 11th consecutive term, holding a 91% majority of the votes.

1 Personal
2 Political career
3 Honours
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Personal

Hazel McCallion was born in Port Daniel on the Gaspé Coast of Quebec. Her father owned a fishing and canning company. Her mother was a homemaker and ran the family farm. After high school she attended business secretarial school in Quebec City and Montreal. She has stated, especially while receiving university honours, that she would have wanted to attend university, but financially her family could not afford it. After working in Montreal, she was transferred by Canadian Kellogg company to Toronto.

She met and married her husband, Sam McCallion, soon after in an Anglican Church congregation. As a marriage present from McCallions’ in-laws, a piece of land in what would later become Mississauga, near the village of Streetsville, was given to the newlyweds. She has two sons, Peter and Paul, one daughter Linda and a granddaughter Erika. McCallion has often stated, such as on TV Ontario's Studio 2, that her husband was always encouraging and supportive of her political career. Prior to becoming Mayor, Hazel and her husband founded The Mississauga Booster community newspaper, a paper that her son now edits and publishes. In 1997, Sam McCallion died of Alzheimer's disease. The Sam McCallion Day Centre was created by the Alzheimer Society of Peel to honour Sam, the founder of the annual Streetsville Bread and Honey Festival.

McCallion is the founder of Hazel's Hope, a campaign to fund health care for children afflicted with AIDS and HIV in southern Africa. Accordingly, she has been lauded as "an international ambassador for the city and a world citizen" by World Mayor, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization advancing the concerns of cities internationally.

McCallion is well known in Canada for her love of hockey, a game she still plays recreationally. In fact, she played for a professional women's team while attending school in Montreal. She still resides in Streetsville.

[edit] Political career

McCallion began her political career in Streetsville, Ontario, a village which has since merged into the city of Mississauga. Beginning as the chairman of the Streetsville Planning Board in 1967, she later became deputy reeve of Streetsville and was appointed reeve soon after. She was elected as Streetsville's mayor in 1970, serving until 1973. By the time she was elected mayor of Mississauga, she had sat on virtually every committee at the Peel Region and the city of Mississauga. She has also served on the executive of many federal and provincial committees and associations.

McCallion's spiritual home is Trinty Anglican Church on Queen Street in Streetsville.

She was first elected Mayor in 1978, narrowly defeating the popular incumbent Ron A. Searle. McCallion had been in office only a few months when a public health and safety crisis occurred during the Mississauga train derailment of 1979. On November 10th a Canadian Pacific train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in a heavily populated area of Mississauga near Mavis Road. A large explosion and fire ensued as hazardous chemicals spilled. McCallion, along with the Peel Regional Police and other governmental authorities, oversaw an orderly and peaceful evacuation of the entire city. She sprained her ankle early in the crisis, but continued to hobble to press conferences and update briefings. There was no loss of life or serious injuries during the week-long emergency, and Mississauga gained international renown for the peaceful evacuation of its 200,000 residents.

McCallion has overseen the growth of Mississauga from a small collection of towns and villages to one of Canada’s largest cities. This dynamic growth of the Toronto area occurred after the 1976 election of René Lévesque' Parti Québécois government sparked an exodus of Anglophones and corporations from Montreal to Toronto. As Toronto grew in national standing, Mississauga politicians worked to define their community beyond a bedroom community of Toronto.

Today, Mississauga is home to a mix of commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational areas. According to Canadian Relocation Systems, "Mississauga [has] 9,730 businesses, widely diversified in manufacturing, distribution and business services. As well, there are approximately 9,000 retail businesses." The McCallion government also spearheaded the development of a 'downtown' Mississauga area. The building of the shopping centre Square One in the Hurontario Street and Burnhamthorpe Road section of the city during the 1970s has evolved into a centre of commercial and recreational activity.

Mississauga's Central Library.

The Civic Centre, including a new city hall, Central Library, and Mississauga Living Arts Centre, along with a Mississauga Transit terminal and shopping and entertainment options now populate the former fallow farm land. This city centre helped unite residents of the different towns that made up Mississauga without destroying the smaller villages. The construction of Highway 403 in the 1980s eased access to this area of the city. In the 1990s, the Hershey Centre, a hockey arena and concert venue, was built near Matheson and Tomken Road facilitating the creation of the Ontario Hockey League's expansion team Mississauga IceDogs.

Some of McCallion's initiatives have been unsuccessful. Under Ontario law, Mississauga is part of Peel Region, along with Brampton and Caledon. McCallion and Mississauga council have asked that their city be made a single tier municipality, but so far that request has been denied by the Ontario government. Mississauga has so far obtained two additional seats on the regional council which still gives it less representation than its proportionate share by population or by municipal tax base. This has created controversy within the region. Brampton and Caledon politicians argued against McCallion, saying that Mississauga's growth has slowed down and it was the chief beneficiary of Peel's 1970s infrastructure projects.

McCallion has also been unsuccessful in collecting the taxes owed to the City of Mississauga, when the federal government appropriated land for Terminal 3 of Toronto Pearson International Airport, which has city millions directly. Others argue that it can be considered an investment towards helping expand Canada's largest international airport which benefits Mississauga. Gridlock on the arterial roads continues to plague Mississauga as in the rest of Peel Region. There are other issues affecting residents, such as a lack of affordable housing — another Peel Region responsibility. Currently, residents who qualify to receive social housing must wait many years before units are made available by Peel Region, which is instead directing the region's $1.2 billion accumulated tax reserves toward the provincial mandate for water treatment expansion and repairs, which must be completed by 2010 to comply with environmental regulations developed as a result of the Walkerton Commission reports.[2]

In 1982, McCallion was found guilty of a conflict of interest on a planning decision by the Ontario High Court of Justice due to not absenting herself from a council meeting discussing a matter in which she had an interest. However, it was found to be a bona fide error of judgment and she was not required to vacate her seat. [3]

McCallion has been easily elected for the last twenty years, with no serious challengers coming close to unseating her as mayor of the city. Due to her popularity, she does not campaign during elections and refuses to accept political donations, instead asking her supporters to donate the money to charity. She is currently beginning her eleventh consecutive term as mayor.

She was lauded as a hero in April 2006 during a police standoff involving a distraught man threatening to kill himself. The five hour standoff promptly came to a peaceful end when McCallion showed up on the scene and demanded he stand down so that police and fire personnel could attend to more important matters.

[edit] Honours

Mayor McCallion gives Mississauga resident Oscar Peterson a civic honour.

In 2005 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
- Bell Mobility commemorated this with a downloadable ringtone featuring McCallion's voice, with proceeds going to Hazel's Hope. The ringtone goes as follows: "This is Hazel McCallion calling for the great city of Mississauga. Answer your phone!" She is the first North American Mayor to receive her own ringtone.
She ranked second in the 2005 international World Mayor poll, behind only Dora Bakoyannis of Athens.
The University of Toronto at Mississauga has named their new library and academic learning centre after McCallion, in appreciation for the support offered the campus in its growth and development.
The Peel Board of Education has named a school after her as well: the Hazel McCallion Senior Public School.
Four different Hazel McCallion bobblehead dolls have been made.[4]
She was named "American Women of the Year" in Who's Who of American Women, as well as "Women of the Year 2001" by an international business lobby. [5].