Hazel McCallion

Hazel McCallion, CM ( born February 14, 1921 as Hazel Journeaux in Port Daniel, Quebec, Canada ), is mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, the sixth largest city with 704,000 residents of Canada. McCallion has held this position since 1978. Both its supporters and the media have referred to as Hurricane Hazel. When she was re-elected for the eleventh time in October 2010 at the age of 89, she received 76 % of votes.

Life

Hazel McCallion was born on February 14, 1921 in Port Daniel on the Gaspé in the province of Quebec. Her father owned a fishing and fish processing plant, her mother was a homemaker and farmed the family farm. The family belonged to the two sisters Linda and Gwen and the two brothers Lorne and Lockhart. After high school she attended office and business schools in Quebec City and Montreal. Later, she has variously expressed that they would have liked to study, her family, the but could not afford. She Ltd. for the engineering and construction company Canadian Kellogg Company. initially worked in Montreal and in Toronto from 1942 until 1967 they gave up their careers in favor of their political activities.

Shortly after her move to Toronto, she met in an Anglican church her ​​future husband, Sam McCallion know. As a wedding gift she received from her husband's parents a piece of land near the village of Streetsville, which later became a part of Mississauga. The marriage produced two sons and a daughter were born. McCallion has often said in interviews that her husband had always encouraged her to pursue a political career. Before she became mayor Missisaugas, she founded with her husband, the newspaper The Mississauga Booster, which is now published by her son. Sam McCallion died in 1997 from Alzheimer 's disease. Hazel McCallion still lives in Streetsville.

To McCallions personal preferences belongs Hockey. During her school years and later in Montreal, she was even active player. Her friends heard of hockey commentator Don Cherry, who joked with her 87th birthday, she was indeed elected by 99.8 percent of the population, however, is still in search of the 0.2 per cent that did not choose have.

Political career

McCallion began her political career in Streetsville, which has now been incorporated in Mississauga, 1967 as chairman of the planning committee. Later, she was deputy head of local and shortly thereafter became the local Head. In 1970, she was elected mayor of the town. This item she kept, was incorporated in 1973 to the place.

In 1978, she was first elected to Mississauga Mayor, as they defeated the popular incumbent Ron A. Searle scarce. McCallion was only a few months in office, when a crisis occurred in the case of public safety. On November 10, 1979, a train with toxic chemicals on the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway derailed in a densely populated area near the Mavis Road. A large explosion and fire followed the discharge of hazardous chemicals. Under McCallions supervision, the police and other government authorities evacuated the entire population of the city, which at that time numbered about 200,000 inhabitants. During about a week ongoing emergency to McCallion sprained her ankle while, but among the population, there were no major injuries or even loss of life.

While McCallions tenure Mississauga has grown from a small collection of towns and villages to one of the largest cities in Canada. The dynamic growth in the Greater Toronto goes back to the election 1976 in the province of Quebec, where the Parti Québécois was elected under René Lévesque in the government and ushered in a migration of the Anglosphere from Montreal to Toronto. While McCallions tenure and the Civic Centre emerged including the new city hall, a library, the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, in the 1980s, Highway 403, and in the 1990s, the Hershey Centre.

Other projects McCallions were less successful. According to the laws of Ontario Mississauga Brampton and Caledon, together with the Regional Municipality of Peel. McCallion and the City Council Mississaugas campaigned that Mississauga gets a independence as a municipality. So far, this concern has been rejected by the provincial government. While Mississauga has received two additional seats in the Regional Council, but has in proportion to population and tax revenues on too small a representation. This has led to controversy in the region because politicians from Brampton and Caledon against McCallion argue that the economic development Mississaugas has slowed and that the city had anyway benefited the most from the infrastructure projects of the 1970s.

McCallion was in 1982 a conflict of interest found guilty because they took part in the meeting of the City Council, on which a decision of the Ontario High Court of Justice was discussed, of which she herself was affected. However, she was not asked to give up their office. McCallion was re-elected ten times after their first term of office, for two decades without significant opportunities for their challengers, so it does not engage in election campaign and will not accept campaign contributions, but their followers asking to donate to charity. Its principles include supporting the city should be run like a business. Mississauga is one of the few cities in Canada without municipal debt.

She is a member of the congregation of Trinity Anglican Church of Streetsville and is a patroness of Hazel 's Hope for infected with HIV and children with AIDS in southern Africa.

McCallion was one of the first politicians in Canada who openly supported a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state. In 1983 she told the annual meeting of the Canadian Arab Federation that " the Palestinians need their own country and need and deserve ."

Honors

McCallion has been awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of Merit.