grand dame passes the gavel
Mississauga finding it difficult to look beyond Hazel
Remarks by Hazel McCallion at Wednesday’s meeting of Mississauga City Council came as councillors discussed the city’s new logo and rebranding exercise. Still, her comments apply equally to the mayor’s chair itself, set for a new occupant in October with Ms. McCallion stepping down.
“Even though I have been mayor for 36 years, I think it’s time for a new brand,” said the 93-year-old. “Something new to accept is very difficult. Change is very difficult to accept.”
Ms. McCallion is escaping just in time. After decades of smooth sailing, Mississauga is heading into the perfect storm: no more greenfield development opportunities to fill city coffers with cash and huge looming costs to replace aging infrastructure. After decades of surpluses, Mississauga this year will post its first deficit.
So far one person — Scott Chapman, an unemployed 24-year-old from Meadowvale — has registered to run for the mayor’s job. Perhaps the hesitation from name candidates is no surprise. It will not be easy to fill Ms. McCallion’s shoes.
She first won election in 1978, the year the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive topped the charts. She maintained power through a cunning strategy, as Tom Urbaniak, a political science professor at the University of Cape Breton Island (born and raised in Mississauga) spelled out in his 2009 book, Her Worship: Hazel McCallion and the Development of Mississauga.
“She favoured having a deputy mayor rotate from month to month,” he writes. “This would stroke the egos of the councillors but of course make it more difficult for any one of them to rise above the rest.”
Toronto councillors rise to prominence heading committees, such as budget or public works or the Toronto Transit Commission. In Mississauga, even committee chairmen’s jobs rotate between councillors. As a result, while everyone in Mississauga knows Ms. McCallion, few can even name their own city councillor.
“I am acting mayor right now,” says Councillor George Carlson of Streetsville, first elected in 2000.
“If Hazel is late for a meeting, you are the boss ‘til the boss gets back. You hold the gavel, and try not to fiddle with the machinery, until Hazel gets in and says, ‘ Give me that, sonny.’ ”
Mississauga under Ms. McCallion is like Cuba under Fidel Castro or Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. When she leaves, forces she has skillfully contained will come out of the bottle.
“It’s going to be incredible,” says Dorothy Tomiuk of Port Credit, chairwoman of Miranet, the Mississauga Residents’ Association Network. “It’s going to be really exciting.”
Mississauga City Hall, which opened in 1987, is a forbidding yellow brick building with dark corridors. Still, its architects, Jones & Kirkland, had a sense of humour: On the council chamber’s theatrical domed ceiling, in a blue sky, float white line drawings of bears, a snake, a native brave in moccasins and, inexplicably, a lion and a crab.
Ms. McCallion runs Mississauga like a bank. On Wednesday, strolling around like a talk-show host with a cordless mike, she presides over the Corporate Awards of Excellence. Janice Baker, the city manager, drones on and on, reading the names of up to 100 city staff who pack the public benches. They troop down to pose with the mayor. The 11 councillors look on, mute.
Then Ms McCallion returns to her chair, which is several inches taller than the councillors’ chairs. She has two computer screens; councillors have one. As they debate re-
It’s been quieter than I thought. It’s like there’s a disbelief she’s going to go
branding the city, the councillors dare some timid jokes.
“People say, ‘Well, what’s wrong with the old brand?’” says Councillor Jim Tovey. “And I say, ‘Well, she’s retiring.’ ”
Sitting in a Mississauga council meeting is a bit like visiting the Land that Time Forgot. More than half of Mississauga’s residents were born outside Canada; still, everyone on the 12-person council is white. Many have served 20 years or more.
The pay encourages them to stay: they are the most well-paid in Canada. With a 2% hike that took effect Jan. 1, councillors now earn $135,726 a year, plus about $43,000 in benefits and car allowance. The mayor earns $191,854, plus about $18,000 in benefits.
“Our salaries are generous,” said Chris Mackie, a Mississauga resident active with Miranet. “Still, some of our councillors work extremely hard.”
At council Wednesday, Councillor Bonnie Crombie (whom most expect to run for mayor) dared to contradict the mayor on the new logo for Mississauga, which the mayor loves.
“I put it on my website and people felt it was too trendy and didn’t highlight our diversity,” Ms. Crombie said.
“One person said it looks like a cootie catcher.”
Even so, “I am not going to vote against it. I am going to go with the flow here.”
The agenda for this meeting looks fairly thick. But it turns out that, to bulk it up, staff have copied 37 full-page photographs taken by residents Paul Del Grande and Steve DeVoe of Indian Grove over their back fence. The photos depict the 15 clotheslines (draped with underwear) their neighbours have hung in their back yard. The residents want council to curb this “blatant, disturbing conduct.”
Debates about clotheslines and a new city logo mask the truth: Mississauga, which turns 40 this year, faces bruising debates about its future. Wednesday night, 100 people filled a meeting held by Miranet in a hall near Burnamthorpe and Dixie roads, to discuss where the city goes from here.
The group only invited sitting politicians. Even so, Carolyn Parrish, a former MP and councillor, reputedly planning another council run, and Steve Mahoney, a former councillor and MP whose wife is a councillor, and who plans to run for mayor, crashed the party.
“We want value for our taxes,” said Ms. Tomiuk of Miranet. “Infrastructure is a key thing. We need community centres, highways, bridges, transit routes. This is a city of barriers: highways, railways and a river. Life may begin at 40 but 40 is also where the cracks start to appear.”
By the remarkably low standards of postwar city planning in Canada, Mississauga is a qualified success. She (the rebranding gurus refer to the city as a female) is a safe place, with good government, ethnic diversity and peace, some beautiful enclaves, including Streetsville, Port Credit and the Credit River Valley. Mississauga is economically strong and fiscally responsible.
However, Ms. Tomiuk notes some problems.
“All the employment is in one place and all the residential is in another place,” she said. “So all the buses are going to be empty in one direction. We have prestige office parks far away from where people live.”
At 8.7 %, Mississauga’s unemployment rate is higher than Ontario’s average, and the Mississauga Food Bank serves 59,000 people a month.
For many years, the city did not raise taxes, as it coasted on its strategic reserve fund. This year, for the first time, it has to go into debt.
“We are in for a huge transition as we come to grips with all these realities,” said Ms. Tomiuk.
Mr. Urbaniak is surprised the mayoral campaign has not yet begun.
“It’s been quieter than I thought,” he said. “It’s like there’s a disbelief that she is going to go.”
Even so, exciting times are coming, as Mississauga awakes from a deep sleep to finally discuss its future.
“I want a mayor who can relate to my children,” said Kiruthiha Kulendiren, vicepresident of the Lisgar Residents’ Association, in northwest Mississauga.
Back at City Hall, councillors stand to unanimously approve the new Mississauga logo.
Then, the city ’s audiovisual team puts the old logo, with a drawing of City Hall and its tired old slogan, “Leading Today for Tomorrow” on the jumbotrons in the council chambers, where it remains for the balance of the meeting.
Change is very difficult to accept.