■当年的麦考莲站在“欢迎到斯特司维尔”的标牌旁。星报资料图片
■麦考莲 90岁生日快乐！密西沙加市长麦考莲昨天欢度90岁生日，她不仅是加拿大最年长的市长，1978年出任市长迄今的她，同时也是担任市长时间最长的。这是她去年8月与总理哈珀在一起。（加通社）
星报/麦考莲(Hazel McCallion)1951年做新娘嫁到斯特司维尔(Streetsville)时，这个乡村正在蜕变。开发商已经出现在农庄，与农场主签订土地协议。
当麦考莲1978年当选成为新城市密西沙加(Mississauga)的市长时，开发正朝城郊的无序拓展方向发展，斯特司维尔和其他分散的村庄已经合并，是麦考莲引导这些村庄转变成一个大都市，她不是城市规划师，却是天生了解选民期望并对金钱持保守态度的平民主义者。经过卅年的执政，麦考莲留给密西沙加的最大印记，不是低密度的住房，不是勉强打造的市中心，也不是储备基金，而是她自己的传奇。
这位备受爱戴的市长周一将满90岁。她已表示，本届任期将是她的最后一任任期。麦考莲的职业生涯政绩累累，但她的名誉近来却受到冲击，有关她在涉及儿子的土地交易中的行为正受到调查。
卡普顿大学(Cape Breton University)教授尤班尼克(Tom Urbaniak)称，麦考莲是“政治科学家梦想的研究范例”。多年来，麦考莲对密西沙加的信念与她的选民一起演变。
麦考莲出嫁前的闺名为Hazel Journeaux，她于1921年出生，当时密西沙加的前身多伦多镇(Toronto Township)刚刚开始发展成为多市郊区。大萧条(Great Depression)沉重打击北美经济时，麦考莲还是个孩子。不过，她在12岁时，已经开始掌管家族渔业生意的工薪账目。他们家5个孩子中，两人成为市长。
麦考莲在1940年代从魁省迁居多伦多，管理大型建筑公司Kellogg Company的多伦多办事处。工作之余，她花大量时间在圣公会青年协会(Anglican Young People’s Association)做义工。1949年，麦考莲成为该组织的首个女主席。在圣公会青年协会，她不仅找到了终身受益的从政要领，还找到了人生伴侣山姆．麦考连(Sam McCallion)。两人新婚后迁居到斯特司维尔，开始经营干洗生意，后来又做过付费宣传报章生意。不久，麦考莲就得到公众的注意，她1964年成为规划委员会的公民成员，1970年成为斯特司维尔市长，此时她养育三个孩子。
输掉一仗 赢得拥戴
当安省省府酝酿组建注定会吞并斯特司维尔的密西沙加市时，麦考莲曾为斯特司维尔力争独立发展的土地。虽然这场战争难免失败，但她赢得了选民拥戴，这才是最为重要的。
麦考莲1974年当选密西沙加议员，当时该市已经开始无规划扩张。尤班尼克教授说，麦考莲以改革者的身分出现，指责市府开发的马虎态度，并推动官方规划。在斯尔利(Ron Searle)执政期间，麦考莲呼吁收取开发费用和土地税。她宣称，发展不是免费的，将是她的执政口号。
麦考莲1978年竞选市长，并以3,000票的优势击败斯尔利。不过，她在上台后次年就遇到沉重考验。一辆载满氯气和其他危险化学品的火车货卡于1979年11月在密西沙加脱轨，丙烷爆炸，氯气泄漏到空气中，约22万人被迫疏散。麦考莲在事件中主持大局，监管疏散，并在事后力争更加严格的运输条例，给选民留下深刻印象。
随着麦考莲的支持率上升，她的议会在1981年做出惊人举动，将通常分阶段发售的开发土地，一次性全部发售，但开发商必须缴税，以支付修建新基础设施的费用，包括图书馆、公园、道路和社区中心。尤班尼克教授说，这是革命性的观念。
儿子土地交易一案很快裁决
不过，在参与讨论土地发售的过程中，麦考莲犯了个严重错误，有些土地是她自己的。法官在1982年裁定，她在市议会讨论未来发售的土地中，因没有申报利益冲突而出现“严重判断错误”。
尽管如此，在当年晚些时候的市选中，麦考莲仍以70%的支持率再度当选市长。市民用选票表达了民意。随后数年中，图书馆、公园和道路纷纷建成，市府的资金也稳稳留在袋中。
密西沙加的开发税政策和市府的零债务令麦考莲名声大震，但却无益于大都市的市容设计。
26岁的麦考莲当年前往挪威首都奥斯陆(Oslo)参加基督教青年第二届会议(2nd World Conference of Christian Youth)时，曾被战后的欧洲大城市迷住，但经过她长达30年内的执政，密西沙加没有罗浮宫，甚至没有一个像样的城市广场。密西沙加只有第一广场(Square One)、市郊和美丽的湖滨。
麦考莲也希望在密市市中心留下自己的印记，她坚持在停车场之间修建城市地标建筑。密西沙加在1980年代末和1990年代初建成市政中心(Civic Centre)和Living Arts Centre，但这两个建筑却紧邻标志密市真正中心的Square One购物中心。
在麦考莲看着自己的地标建筑分别于1980年代末和1990年代初建成的同时，她的丈夫却于1997年逝世。麦考莲随后仍重返工作岗位，不过，千禧年之后的日子并非一帆风顺。有关涉及她儿子的土地交易一案，法官很快将做出裁决，报告有望在数星期内发表。也许受到最近媒体负面报告的伤害，麦考莲在其90岁生日前，婉拒了采访要求。
零税率增长的日子早已过去；市府的储备资金也愈用愈少；基础设施开始老化；可用于开发的土地快要用完，麦考莲也意识到密市面对艰难时刻，有些事情需要改变。在她88岁时，她曾向星报表示，她最大的遗憾是密市缺乏过渡计划。麦考莲，这位虔诚的基督徒，也许会为密西沙加的继任者祈祷。
Hazel McCallion oversaw Mississauga’s transformation from rural to urban
Published On Sat Feb 12 2011
Katie Daubs Staff Reporter
(Hazel McCallion gets a victory hug from her husband, Sam, after winning the Streetsville mayor’s job. TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)
When Hazel McCallion arrived in Streetsville as a young bride in 1951, the village was changing. Developers were showing up at farmhouses, settling land deals with a handshake.
By the time she became mayor of the fledgling city of Mississauga in 1978, the course had already been set for suburban sprawl. Streetsville and other scattered villages had been melded, and it would be McCallion who would steer their transformation into a metropolis — not as an urban planner, but as a populist with a genius for anticipating what people wanted and a conservative eye on the wallet.
After three decades at the helm, the greatest mark McCallion would leave on the city would not be low-density housing, a forced downtown core, or a reserve fund.
It would be herself.
On Monday, the beloved mayor turns 90. She has indicated this will be her last term. Her career has been marked with success, but of late her reputation has taken a beating. As her last years in office wind down, the mayor’s actions in a land deal involving her son are being aired in an ongoing inquiry.
Tom Urbaniak, a professor at Cape Breton University, calls McCallion a “political scientist’s dream case study.”
Through the years, her beliefs about the city have evolved with her voters. In some ways, it is hard to tell where Hazel McCallion ends and Mississauga begins.
The city of Mississauga did not exist when Hazel Journeaux was born in 1921. The Lakeshore Highway, between Toronto and Hamilton, had been paved a few years earlier, and Toronto Township, the predecessor to Mississauga, was beginning to become a suburb — an alternative to Toronto’s gritty city life.
Journeaux grew up in Port Daniel, Que., a small Gaspé town. Urbaniak, who wrote Her Worship: Hazel McCallion and the Development of Mississauga, returned with the mayor to her childhood home a few years ago and noted a striking similarity among members of the Journeaux clan: Most shared Hazel’s “tightly constructed lips.”
McCallion was a child when the Great Depression hit. At 12, she was already in charge of payroll for the family fishing business.
They weren’t “desperately poor,” says Urbaniak. “The family was entrepreneurial and active in the community, but there was a prevailing sense of frugality, and I have no doubt that shaped her political personality,”
Of the five children, two became mayors. When Lockhart Journeaux died in a car accident on the way to a council meeting as mayor of Port Daniel, his little sister Hazel was still years away from becoming Streetsville’s mayor.
After high school in Quebec, she attended a secretarial school in Montreal and moved to Toronto in the ’40s to run the office of Kellogg Company, a major construction firm.
Outside of work, she was a joiner. She volunteered much of her time with the Anglican Young People’s Association, where she kept subscriptions of a monthly newsletter up to date and was a club booster. A 1947 profile noted: “It is felt moreover that she will contribute more than the average leader.”
In 1949, the young woman with the “sunny smile” became the first “lady president” of the organization. In being willing to take on responsibility and being pushy but likeable, Hazel found a formula that would serve her throughout the political career to come.
She also found the man whose last name she would make famous. Sam McCallion, a few years younger, was the program research convenor for the Anglican youth organization, and like Hazel wrote for the newsletter.
Sam adopted a breezy tone about how to plan get-togethers: “No party is complete without refreshments … you might serve ice cream with a rose,” he wrote in 1951.
The woman who had caught his eye wrote with authority: “The aim (of the AYPA) is to promote the religious, social and intellectual welfare of the members,” she pointed out in a 1950 editorial. “Is your branch a group of young people endeavouring to fulfill these requirements or would it be better classified as a social club?”
Already, she had the stern tone mastered.
When the newlyweds moved to Streetsville, they started a dry-cleaning business, and later, an advertorial paper.
It didn’t take long for Hazel McCallion to rise to public attention, even at a time when women weren’t often seen in community leadership. By 1964, she was a citizen member of the planning board, and by 1970 she was mayor of Streetsville, winning on a platform of curbing development. She was simultaneously raising three children: Peter, Paul and Linda.
When the province conceived the idea of Mississauga — a municipality destined to swallow Streetsville — she fought to expropriate land for Streetsville to grow into a city in its own right.
It was a fight she could not win, but a popular cause. And that was all that mattered.
When McCallion became a Mississauga councillor in 1974, the city was already beginning its famous pattern of sprawl. The “big three” local developers — Bruce McLaughlin (city centre/Hurontario), E.P. Taylor (Erin Mills), and Markborough Developments (Meadowvale) — had bought up a good portion of the available land in the centre, west side, and northwest corner of the city.
McCallion came in as a reformer, criticizing the lax attitude toward development and pushing for an official plan, Urbaniak said.
When Ron Searle became mayor, McCallion called for development charges and lot levies. She proclaimed the mantra that would become the core of her political mandate: Growth must pay for itself.
“We may be building a city, but then again, we may end up with no people because they won’t be able to afford to live here,” she said in 1978.
McCallion ran for mayor that year. She wanted to bring in more industrial and commercial development, build a second hospital and cap the population (then just 250,000) at 500,000 “so we won’t be crammed in like sardines.”
She beat Searle by 3,000 votes.
A year later, she would face her first big test.
In November 1979, a train carrying chlorine and other dangerous chemicals derailed in Mississauga. The propane exploded and chlorine gas seeped into the air. Some 220,000 people had to be evacuated. McCallion took charge, overseeing the evacuations, and later fighting for tougher transport rules.
With her reputation as the people’s champion thus entrenched, McCallion’s council made a trade-off in 1981. Land that would normally be released for development in stages would be made available all at once, but developers would have to pay levies to cover the cost of new infrastructure such as libraries, parks, roads and community centres.
City and regional staff warned that existing neighbourhoods needed to be built out and the sprawl resulting from this policy would create a car-dependent city, explained Urbaniak. But McCallion and her council voted to take the gamble. Suburbs built on former farm fields that didn’t offend the established neighbourhoods followed.
“In some ways, Hazel actually drove a pretty tough bargain with the developers,” said Neil Thomlinson, a politics professor at Ryerson University. “That was a revolutionary concept.”
But by taking part in debate over the release of land, McCallion made a serious mistake. Some of that land was hers.
In 1982, a judge found that she had committed a “substantial error in judgment” in failing to declare a conflict of interest during council debate over future land releases.
Yet later that year, she was re-elected with 71 per cent of the vote. The people had spoken.
In the years that followed, the libraries, parks and roads kept going in, and the city’s money stayed in the bank.
The development levies and her city’s debt-free status would make her famous, but not for great urban design.
When 26-year-old Hazel Journeaux went to Oslo for the 2nd World Conference of Christian Youth, she was charmed by the great cities she saw in postwar Europe.
“To be in Paris was a dream come true,” she wrote in the Young Anglican monthly. “Standing on the Place de la Concorde we gazed to the right and beheld the Louvre Palace.”
Thirty years later, Mississauga had no Louvre, or even a commanding town square. It had Square One, suburbs, and a nice waterfront.
“It grew how the developers wanted it to grow,” said Larry Taylor, a former councillor who clashed with McCallion long before her latest tormenter, Carolyn Parrish, was on the scene. “There’s still no downtown and still no sense of city there.”
Taylor, now a real estate broker, remains frustrated about the city that never was. As a councillor in the ’70s and ’80s, he tried to get council on board to redevelop Burnhamthorpe Rd. into something more urbane.
“I wanted something like University Ave., with some water features, a grand boulevard, to know you had entered into the city centre,” he said. “Out of all that, I got the fountain at the library.”
McCallion, says Urbaniak, was no Fiorello LaGuardia — New York’s visionary urban reformer. While she had no specific vision for the city, she wanted to leave her imprint on its downtown, and insisted on building landmarks among the parking lots.
The Civic Centre and Living Arts Centre were the product of international competitions in the late ’80s and early ’90s, built next to the shopping mall that marks the de facto centre of Mississauga.
When the Living Arts Centre was completed, the Star’s Christopher Hume was impressed, but criticized its failure to mesh with the aggressively postmodern Civic Centre, which he called one of the most “remarkable buildings” in Canada.
“(Architect) Zeidler ignored the obvious cues and lapsed into the architectural arbitrariness so typical of Mississauga,” Hume wrote.
Along with arbitrary architecture, McCallion’s Mississauga has not been a great friend to the heritage preservation community.
In 2004, a 160-year-old farmhouse that was not on the city’s list of heritage property was demolished by a developer. Urbaniak writes in his book that between 1994 and 2005, Mississauga did not pursue any designations under the Ontario Heritage Act unless the owner of the property agreed.
But McCallion could be a heritage activist when it counted.
Before the Avro Arrow hanger was torn down in 2004, she tried to get Ottawa to save it. As with the battle for Streetsville, the effort failed. But McCallion was perceived as being on the right side.
And that’s how a mayor gets herself re-elected with 90 per cent of the vote.
“She has a remarkable ability to feel the public pulse, get a sense of emerging movements and pre-empt them. That pre-emption, so shrewdly, has perhaps unwittingly stifled, to some extent, civic engagement,” Urbaniak says.
Matthew Wilkinson, a historian with Heritage Mississauga, says the perception that Mississauga developed haphazardly isn’t fair.
“There is a lot more structure and thought (behind it) than people understand,” he said. “Granted, some of it didn’t work. It doesn’t mean the thought wasn’t there.”
As McCallion saw her landmarks go up in the late ’80s and ’90s, her husband — the gentleman of Streetsville — was failing. Sam McCallion, who had suffered from Alzheimer’s for years, died in 1997.
“We loved Uncle Sam,” said Enid Bechervaise, McCallion’s 69-year-old niece. “He was a real sweetheart.”
McCallion returned to work and kept herself busy. But the post-millennium era has been difficult.
In 2004, her developer son Peter wanted a landmark of his own, a hotel complex near city hall. His mother came along for meetings with a potential operator and did a good deal more to grease the wheels, according to evidence presented in the current inquiry. But she said she was not there to influence anything other than the public good.
Justice Douglas Cunningham will decide that. His inquiry report is expected within weeks.
“With all this schmozzle going on, I hope and pray she can keep up her strength,” said Bechervaise, who still calls the mayor “Aunt Hazel.”
Perhaps bruised by the negative turn of media coverage lately, McCallion declined to be interviewed on the eve of her 90th birthday.
The zero-tax-increase years are long over. The reserve fund from the boom years is running dry. The infrastructure is aging, and there is little land left to develop. Mississauga’s future will be one of provincially mandated intensification, certain to draw the kind of NIMBY opposition the city has largely avoided for years.
McCallion has acknowledged the city is facing hard times and things need to change. When she turned 88, she told the Star her biggest regret has been lack of transit planning. “You can’t build a public transit system based on single homes,” she said. “You need the density.”
Paul Bedford, Toronto’s former chief planner, says Mississauga is rethinking its land use, and McCallion has been “instrumental” recently in pushing for smart growth.
In her 1951 farewell message as president of the Anglican Young People’s Association, a 30-year-old Journeaux asked readers to keep the next executive in their prayers.
Sixty years later, the “gal” from the yellowed pages of those newsletters is turning 90. This is her last term in office. The city she built will soon be for others to look after.
McCallion, always a good Christian, will probably be praying for them.
http://www.thestar.com/news/mississauga/article/937684
McCallion shimmies into her 90s
Published On Sun Feb 13 2011
By Mary Ormsby, Feature Writer
What do you get for the mayor who has everything?
(Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion is feted at a party to mark her 90th birthday at the Living Arts Centre on Sunday. CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR)
How about something that Hazel McCallion, who turns 90 on Monday, can’t buy at the mall or order online: Birthday wishes from more than 2,000 of her Mississauga constituents on Sunday.
“This birthday was fantastic, all those people — my people,” said a radiant McCallion after spending four hours chatting with guests, having her photo taken and belly dancing — yup, shimmying to an Egyptian beat — during the free community bash at Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre.
Canada’s oldest mayor also received an array of tribute gifts — some she could take home, some made her smile warmly — that reflected how beloved she is in the city she’s led since 1978. A tree, a lane, an amethyst-and-pearl pendant, an arts volunteer award, a youth physical education program and a Canada Post stamp were all named in her honour.
“This is the most famous mayor in the whole wide world,” bellowed singer Patti Jannetta as the crowd cheered.
“We love her the most, don’t we? We love you Hazel.”
Dancers, singers, a magician, crafts and face-painting for kids were all part of the afternoon’s free entertainment. Enough chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, soft drinks, water, coffee and tea for 2,500 were laid out on long tables for people to serve themselves. Balloons floated amid the glassy atrium of the arts centre, with partygoers milling around the main floor stage or overlooking the bustling fun from the first floor.
Her cake? A huge vanilla-iced cupcake, adorned with tiny pink flowers and dressed with five candles — which McCallion snuffed with one easy breath.
“We think she is very special,” said Alketa Gjonaj, who with husband Altin brought daughter Arba, 8 months, and Raina, 3, to be photographed with McCallion.
“We have lived here a year and a half and we think she has done a lot for Mississauga. And if we could be 90 years old and still be like her, that would be something special too.”
McCallion stood for hours, patient and cheerful, as photos were taken and she was hugged repeatedly. Dressed in a bright fuchsia blouse, black skirt, tights and high heels, she was an elegant hostess — and one white-haired man couldn’t resist complimenting her.
“You are like a 16-year-old girl,” he marvelled.
“Oh, that feels good,” said the mayor, giggling
McCallion’s community party followed a lavish $350-a-plate birthday gala with nearly 1,000 guests at Mississauga’s Convention Centre Saturday night. That event raised funds for the city’s new Sheridan College campus which will also be named after her.
A weekend of cakes and candles was a sweet break for the woman who has been a central figure in an ongoing conflict-of-interest inquiry.
In 2004, McCallion’s developer son Peter wanted to build a hotel complex near Mississauga’s city hall. His mother attended meetings with a potential owner, according to testimony presented at the inquiry. McCallion has said she was not there to influence anything other than the public good.
But McCallion, whose attention Sunday was on celebration and not inquiries, has indicated this will be her final term as mayor.
“It’s such a pleasure to serve you. I’m your servant and it’s been just a delight all these many, many years.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/938231–mccallion-shimmies-into-her-90s
Hazel McCallion at 90: ‘the poster child for seniors’
(Hazel McCallion places a pin on volunteer Gladys Taylor at Trillium Health Centre, where Mississauga’s mayor spent part of her 90th birthday. McCallion took part in the Wear Your Heart event to kick off the hospital’s recognition of the International Year of Volunteers.
CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR)
San Grewal
Urban Affairs Reporter
It was a perfect fit, Hazel McCallion — poster-girl for longevity and good health — spending her 90th birthday, on Valentine’s Day, at a cardiac hospital.
“Her and I are from the same blood,” said 85-year-old Trillium Health Centre volunteer Doris Blakely, who was on a surgery ward as the Mississauga mayor stopped by to pay her respects on a day filled with events for the inspiring leader.
“You’re aiming to be 100,” McCallion said to the younger woman after they shared an embrace. “I hope we both get there.”
McCallion was more concerned with recognizing the work of volunteers, as her birthday coincided with the hospital’s Wear Your Heart event recognizing the International Year of Volunteers.
“I’m glad they can’t get rid of you,” McCallion said to Blakely. “Isn’t it great that you call this your second home? Think of all the tender love and care patients get because of people like you.”
The tour of the ward came after a packed birthday celebration just after 10 a.m. in the hospital’s lobby, filled with staff, patients, families and media that turned out to honour the mayor.
McCallion had already made a stop earlier in the morning at Credit Valley Hospital, which she helped found 25 years ago.
“We wanted to celebrate the person who was instrumental in creating this wonderful institution,” said Credit Valley spokesperson Helen Reilly.
Dr. Barbara Clive was part of the group that presented the mayor with a giant birthday card.
“I was chief of staff for 10 years. Whenever we needed funding, for anything, we went to Hazel. We would go down to her office at 7:15 in the morning and she would get on the phone with the premier, whoever, until we had what we needed.”
Clive says she marvels at another aspect of McCallion, beyond her commitment to serving the people of Mississauga.
“I’m a geriatrician. She’s phenomenal. At 90 her gait is perfect, her speech is totally sharp and she has the drive to still run this city. She’s the poster child for seniors.”
McCallion said longevity runs among the women in her family. “My mother lived to 79, when people didn’t live that long. My one sister lived to 95 and the other to 82. That’s the one thing I’ve thought about while turning 90. It is pretty amazing that I’m in such good health. I don’t take any medication, I still drive.”
The physical marvel had a packed schedule on her special day, including lunch at City Hall thrown by staff, private functions with some of the dozens of groups desperate to show their support and finally, dinner with family.
But she said making the hospitals her first priority on the special day was an easy decision.
“My mother was a nurse. She graduated from Montreal General Hospital in 1901 and started working there right after until she got married. I think looking after people’s health is one of the greatest jobs you can do.”
McCallion seems to have taken care of that on her own. As she walked out Trillium’s main doors, people lined both sides of the walkway to wish her a happy birthday.
She shook each hand before getting into the driver’s seat of her silver hybrid Chevy Malibu, and with a wave of her hand, cruised away.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/938547–hazel-mccallion-she-s-the-poster-child-for-seniors
Mississauga loves Hazel
What do you get for the mayor who has everything?
How about something that Hazel McCallion, who turns 90 today, can’t buy at the mall or order online: Birthday wishes from more than 2,000 of her Mississauga constituents.
“This birthday was fantastic, all those people … my people,” said a radiant McCallion after spending four hours yesterday chatting with guests, having her photo taken and belly dancing to an Egyptian beat during the free community bash at the Living Arts Centre.
Canada’s oldest mayor also received an array of tribute gifts — some she could take home, some made her smile warmly — that reflected how beloved she is in the city she’s led since 1978. A tree, a lane, an amethyst-and-pearl pendant, an arts volunteer award, a youth physical education program and a Canada Post stamp were all named in her honour.
“This is the most famous mayor in the whole wide world,” bellowed singer Patti Jannetta as the crowd cheered.
“We love her the most, don’t we? We love you Hazel.”
Dancers, singers, a magician, crafts and face-painting for kids were all part of the afternoon’s free entertainment. Enough chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, soft drinks, water, coffee and tea for 2,500 were laid out on long tables for people to serve themselves. Balloons floated amid the glassy atrium of the arts centre, with partygoers milling around the main floor stage or overlooking the bustling fun from the first floor.
Her cake? A huge vanilla-iced cupcake, adorned with tiny pink flowers and dressed with five candles — which McCallion snuffed with one easy breath.
“We think she is very special,” said Alketa Gjonaj, who with husband Altin brought daughter Arba, 8 months, and Raina, 3, to be photographed with McCallion.
“We have lived here a year and a half and we think she has done a lot for Mississauga. And if we could be 90 years old and still be like her, that would be something special, too.”
McCallion stood for hours, patient and cheerful, as photos were taken and she was hugged repeatedly. Dressed in a bright fuchsia blouse, black skirt, tights and high heels, she was an elegant hostess — and one white-haired man couldn’t resist complimenting her.
“You are like a 16-year-old girl,” he marvelled.
“Oh, that feels good,” said the mayor, giggling
McCallion’s community party followed a lavish $350-a-plate birthday gala held the previous night that attracted nearly 1,000 guests to Mississauga’s Convention Centre. That event raised funds for the city’s new Sheridan College campus, which will also be named after McCallion.
A weekend of cakes and candles was a sweet break for the woman who has been a central figure in an ongoing conflict-of-interest inquiry.
In 2004, McCallion’s developer son Peter wanted to build a hotel complex near City Hall. His mother attended meetings with a potential owner, according to testimony presented at the inquiry. McCallion has said she was not there to influence anything other than the public good.
But McCallion, whose attention yesterday (Sunday) was on celebration and not inquiries, has indicated this will be her final term as mayor.
“It’s such a pleasure to serve you. I’m your servant and it’s been just a delight all these many, many years.”
http://www.mississauga.com/news/article/954272–mississauga-loves-hazel
