McCALLION LIVES ON the end of a quiet
crescent with her 12-year-old German
shepherd, Missy (short for Missis-
sauga, of course). Her beloved hus-
band, Sam McCallion, died in 1997
after a battle with Alzheimer’s. The two
met in the early ’50s in Toronto, when
she was running the office of an engin-
eering firm.
Her eyes light up when I ask about
Sam. “He was a very kind gentleman,
extremely thoughtful. He was a good
father and very well respected in the
community.”
A photographer and printer, Sam ran
the newspaper in Streetsville, Ont., a
small community that was ultimately
swallowed by Mississauga. Sam’s news-
paper helped spur McCallion’s interest
in local politics, inspiring her to run for
deputy reeve (the small-town equiva-
lent of mayor) in 1967. From then on,
Sam was a tremendous asset to her
career: “He was always supportive and
loved to go to events with me. And the
people loved to see him. He never
interfered with politics.”
When asked if she had any regrets
from her political career, McCallion
doesn’t seem to understand why I’d
pose such a dumb question. She grum-
bles a few disappointments after Ipersist, including failing to build a con-
vention centre and expand local transit.
I was hoping she’d talk about the
conflict-of-interest accusations that
occurred during her later time in
office—where she was accused of
passing amendments that might have
benefited a development company
her son Peter had shares in. A 2011
judicial probe found she had a “real
and apparent conflict of interest,” but
she was cleared of conflict of interest
charges in 2013. The scandal had zero
effect on her popularity: in the 2010
election, at the height of the contro-
versy, she got 76 per cent of the vote.
Although she has confronted the
incident forthrightly, devoting a chap-
ter to it in her co-authored autobiogra-
phy, Hurricane Hazel: A Life With Pur-
pose, looking back on her long life is
not of much interest to her. Even at 98,
she’s obsessively focused on the future.
She’ll find new ways, outside pol-
itics, to continue leaving her mark. “I
felt I had brought the city to the point
where it was time for someone to take
over with new ideas,” McCallion says.
“I always felt that you should leave a
job when you’re at a peak.”Trick or Treat?
Halloween is my favourite holiday where you can trespass on
a stranger’s property and make a non-negotiable demand.
@ROLLDIGGITYFROM “HURRICANE HAZEL,” BY PETER MUGGERIDGE,
ZOOMER MAGAZINE (MAY 2019), EVERYTHINGZOOMER.COMreader’s digest
74 october 2019