Comment 88974

By Noted (anonymous) | Posted May 25, 2013 at 06:38:48

Hazel McCallion’s legacy hangs in the balance.

If she is removed from office in the coming weeks, the 92-year-old could be forever associated with the worst elements of backroom municipal politics.
If not, she’s likely to be remembered as one of the greatest mayors in Canada’s history.

With less than two years left in what she has called her final term, and with the decision in her conflict of interest case expected within two weeks, McCallion has recently approached city business with an air of urgency.

Last week she endorsed a $10 million funding request from the University of Toronto toward a new $70 million to $100 million innovation complex in Mississauga — almost before the pitch had been delivered.

“This is for future generations in Mississauga,” she said, before exhorting her council colleagues to get on board. They did.

She has made it no secret that a massive $1.6 billion LRT project along Hurontario St. — her city’s spine — could be her last major battle.

McCallion has been pushing Premier Kathleen Wynne about the dire need for better transit throughout the GTHA ever since Wynne became a frontrunner for the job.
As chair of the Large Urban Mayors’ Caucus of Ontario, McCallion pushed through a resolution endorsing most of Metrolinx’s proposed revenue tools to fund its $50 billion Big Move regional transportation plan. She did the same at Mississauga council, telling colleagues to put aside their concerns about transit funding impacts in consideration of the greater good.

She chastised a neighbouring mayor, Brampton’s Susan Fennell, for publicly stating she didn’t support any of the revenue tools. Fennell quickly changed her tune.

McCallion isn’t just talking about Mississauga these days when she addresses the “crisis” of traffic congestion or testifies about the cancelled gas plants; she’s speaking on behalf of all Ontarians.

In March, when called before a provincial inquiry into the gas plant cancellations, she ripped into all three parties: the Liberals for agreeing to the projects in the first place and the Conservatives and NDP for playing “political games” at the expense of urgent provincial business.

But her revered reputation as Ontario’s most senior political figure, a straight-shooter who doesn’t suffer fools or mince words, might soon take a blow she won’t be able to recover from.

“If she is removed from office, this will be the central story in the Hazel McCallion narrative,” says Tom Urbaniak, who authored a biography of McCallion. “The manner of retirement will be inscribed in history.”

The conflict case involving votes she participated in at the Region of Peel in 2007 mirrors the Mississauga judicial inquiry that wrapped up in 2011. The votes in Peel allegedly stood to save her son, Peter McCallion’s, company $11 million in development charges on a downtown hotel-convention centre it was looking to build.

The 2011 inquiry found her in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of Ontario’s municipal conflict-of-interest law for pushing her son’s hotel-convention centre project.

She was let off the hook, though, largely due to the narrow scope of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. She declared a conflict at city council when the development was addressed, so was not in contravention of the act. However, she did not declare a conflict at the region, on which the current case is focused.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/05/24/mississaugas_hazel_mccallion_hastens_to_seal_her_legacy_in_a_final_term_that_may_be_cut_short.html

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