Enhance the airport and watch your city take off, Mississauga mayor advises
November 01, 2008
Meredith Macleod
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 1, 2008)
There is perhaps no one better in Canada to chat with about how to build a great city than Hazel McCallion. She's built a reputation as a firebrand, no-holds-barred workhorse during an astonishing 30-year run as the mayor of Mississauga. McCallion, 87, has a list of awards and credits that easily stretches taller than her tiny frame.
She's respected by citizens (who have elected her 11 straight times, often with more than 90 per cent of the vote), bureaucrats and politicians alike and has earned the affectionate nickname Hurricane Hazel.
So The Spectator sat down with Mississauga's veteran mayor to talk about Hamilton's road ahead.
"Hamilton has been a great city," she says, sitting in a wingback chair in the family room of her Streetsville home.
"But it's seen detrimental effects because it's depended on the steel companies in a major way. We have a very diverse economic base in Mississauga. No one industry can have a major impact like the car manufacturers in Oshawa and Windsor."
McCallion says much of Mississauga's growth is a direct result of Pearson airport, which sprawls within the city's borders.
She thinks Hamilton should put a priority on enhancing its airport and the lands around it. "Hamilton is already attracting business from Pearson. Any community that invests in their airport finds it's a worthwhile economic advantage."
McCallion has guided Mississauga's transformation from a collection of sleepy bedroom villages into Canada's sixth most populous city.
It's also one of the fastest growing. Mississauga has doubled in size in the last two decades.
In the 2006 census, there were 668,549 people living in Mississauga. That was an increase of 9.1 per cent over the 2001 population and twice as much growth as Hamilton saw.
But that's slow for Mississauga. During the 1980s and 1990s, it was booming by as much as 17.5 per cent between censuses.
What is particularly remarkable about Mississauga and one of McCallion's crowning achievements is that the city has been debt-free since 1978 -- the year she was first elected mayor.
To contrast, Hamilton is projected to be $348 million in the red next year.
McCallion stresses that she runs her city like a business. That means pay as you go, live within your means, save for the unexpected.
Mississauga has focused on developing its downtown, which McCallion says grew up out of a "hayfield."
Condo development is among the fastest in the GTA, thanks in large part to the city's decision not to set height or density restrictions in the downtown.
But McCallion refused to let Mississauga become a bedroom suburb to Toronto. "We promoted very strongly that businesses are welcome here, there is a welcome mat out for business," said McCallion.
The city kept taxes low and gave preference to building permits for businesses.
The city's economic development department is charged with getting projects through the bureaucracy as quickly and simply as possible.
"I tell business owners looking to come here to meet with our staff and draw up a schedule about how fast it can occur. We can meet the deadlines."
But Mississauga doesn't come cheap. The city has had the highest development charges in the GTA. Those funds go directly into infrastructure, and McCallion says that has allowed the city to keep its roads, water and sewer systems in good shape.
"We're not in the situation that Hamilton or Toronto is in. Of course, we're a young city, but down the road we will run into the same problems if we don't maintain our infrastructure now."
She says the provincial and federal governments have not pumped enough money into crumbling cities. She was part of a team who unsuccessfully lobbied Ottawa to direct one cent of the GST to urban infrastructure.
"I don't care what fund they take the money from, but we need money for infrastructure. We need it very badly."
She says transportation is the most pressing issue facing the province and if addressing gridlock doesn't happen quickly, McCallion fears for the future.
She's a member of the Metrolinx board and says the agency should have been charged with looking at transportation across the entire Golden Horseshoe.
"Transportation to the border is so important but the province is concentrating only on gridlock in the GTA."
She laments the lack of national leadership.
"When we had very little population in Canada there was a vision to build two rail lines across the country. Think about that. It changed everything and towns were built along the rail lines. We've lost that vision in Canada."
And back in Hamilton, McCallion says the city has to find a way to get beyond the hard feelings and resentment left over from amalgamation in order forge a new path of what it can be.
She points to Hong Kong, a former manufacturing hub that was crushed by Chinese competition, and Elliot Lake, an Ontario town devastated by closures of mines, as examples of communities that found a new way.
"Hamilton has lost a lot and the mayor and council can't do it alone. You must get the people involved and ask them, 'What do you want your city to be?'"
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About Mayor Hazel McCallion
* Mayor of Mississauga for 30 years.
* Made a member of the Order of Canada in 2005.
* Often called Hurricane Hazel for her no-nonsense style.
* She drives a sleek Buick with Mayor 1 on the licence plate. She refuses a driver, even after crashing her car into a light pole in 2006.
* Mother of three, grandmother of one.
* Her year-old Shiloh shepherd is named Missy for her favourite city. Her previous dog was named Hurricane.
* She ranked second in the 2005 international World Mayor poll, behind only Dora Bakoyannis of Athens.
* In 2006, Reader's Digest named her the best city mayor.
* She has an elementary school and a university library named after her.
* In 1991, she became the first mayor of a major municipality to submit the city's annual operating budget to residents for input.
* Four types of Hazel McCallion bobblehead dolls have been made.
* A cellphone ringtone featured McCallion's voice saying: "Answer the phone! This is Hazel McCallion calling from the great city of Mississauga."
* In 1979, in just her second year in office, McCallion presided over the aftermath of the derailment of a 106-car train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals. A ruptured chlorine tank forced 230,000 people to leave their homes. No one was killed or hurt and McCallion has since called the orderly evacuation "the Mississauga miracle."
* Before becoming mayor, McCallion and her late husband Sam founded the Mississauga Booster newspaper, which is now published by her son.
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