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Ontario History

Her Worship. Hazel McCallion and the Development of By Tom Urbaniak Richard Harris

Volume 102, Number 1, Spring 2010

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1065611ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1065611ar

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Publisher(s) The Historical Society

ISSN 0030-2953 (print) 2371-4654 (digital)

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Cite this review Harris, R. (2010). Review of [Her Worship. Hazel McCallion and the Development of Mississauga By Tom Urbaniak]. Ontario History, 102(1), 143–144. https://doi.org/10.7202/1065611ar

Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2010 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/

This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ book reviews 143

Her Worship. Hazel McCallion and the Development of Mississauga By Tom Urbaniak : Press, 2009. 336 pages. $27.95 softcover. ISBN 978-0- 8020-9602-9 (www.utppublishing.com)

“Think like a man, act like a lady, work like a dog.” – Hazel McCallion

s I write, Hazel McCallion is in hot water. She is accused of an un- declared confict of interest over a Aland deal, and the evidence seems damn- ing. Such a misstep could bring down many a , but surely not Hazel. After all, she was found guilty on a similar charge in 1981-82, but this barely dented her popularity. Like President Reagan, only for much longer, Hazel has been the Tefon politician. Why has she been so popular, and durable: elected as mayor of Streets- with Streetsville and , the City. ville in 1970, of Mississauga in 1978, and Meanwhile McCallion had become active never beaten—indeed barely challenged— in the civic arena. Joining the Streetsville since? This question guides Her Worship, Chamber of Commerce in 1962, within a Tom Urbaniak’s solid political biography year she was its president. In 1965 she was of one of Canada’s leading municipal poli- asked to join as a volunteer member of the ticians in the postwar era. local Planning Board; within a year she was Urbaniak tells a straightforward story, its chair, and by the end of the decade she beginning with McCallion’s early years in was Streetsville’s mayor. Although she at Port-Daniel West, on the south shore of the first resisted its amalgamation in 1974, she Gaspé. Her parents’ kitchen table offered the learned to accept, and then embrace, the in- ideal nourishment for her later, long career: evitable. Her rise to municipal power, then, solid fare (no junk food), spiced with po- is attributable to the qualities that have kept litical discussion. Urbaniak follows her into her there: ambition, hard work, pragma- the Anglican Young People’s Association tism, and grass-roots networking. and then into the workforce, as she rises to Because of McCallion’s political lon- office manager for an engineering company, gevity, she has contradicted herself. Her which helped bring her to the Township of biggest decision was to sponsor resolutions Toronto in 1951. In 1968 this Township 594 and 595 in November 1981. These was to become the Town of Mississauga required developers, even Mississauga’s and then, in 1974, after being amalgamated big three (Markborough, E.P.Taylor, and 144 ONTARIO HISTORY

McLaughlin), to pay all costs of land devel- of the City-of-Toronto-centred media— opment, including soft as well as hard costs. newspapers, radio, and TV alike—took This appeared progressive, but carried an little interest in merely suburban matters.) unfortunate quid pro quo. Companies could Urbaniak also makes telling points about develop whatever land they owned, regard- how sprawl encouraged separate subdivi- less of location, and this produced sprawl. sions to turn against one another, as each In the short run, the City benefited, but in worked to defect development elsewhere. the long term it was saddled with the costs Despite the book’s subtitle, the interplay of of maintaining and servicing a low-den- place and personality never quite rises to sity built environment. By the mid-1990s, the status of a fully-developed theme, but McCallion realized this. “We are creat- there is material here to interest those with ing a monster,” she declared (p. 194), and broader interests in urban politics. Simi- gave her support to Smart Growth strate- larly, there are scattered asides about how gies then becoming fashionable. Was this McCallion’s gender affected her electoral a cynical fip-fop, a sensible adaptation to prospects. Mostly for the better, it seems. In new circumstances, or a sign that she has al- an early campaign, for example, Urbaniak ways thought too little of the future? Prob- suggests that old guard politicians were re- ably all three. Certainly, and very plausibly, luctant to land low blows on a woman can- Urbaniak argues that McCallion remains didate. (p. 92) a scrapper, rather than a stateswoman who But broader judgments of this kind are can rise above the day-to-day affray. Re- fragmentary. Urbaniak sticks close to his gardless, no one could accuse her of sticking evidence. As a result, Her Worship will ap- obstinately to an outmoded vision. peal primarily to those who have a serious Urbaniak does a workmanlike job of interest in Mississauga, its celebrated may- recounting McCallion’s reversal on the is- or, and the roots of Toronto’s sprawl. The sue of sprawl, as he does of telling the story story that it tells, of the development and of lesser initiatives and battles. There is a politics of a postwar suburb, has a wider fund of information here and, as far as I can resonance, but it will be the work of some tell, he is a reliable and fair-minded guide. other scholar to make the wider compari- The author of a previous book about Street- sons and underline the general lessons. sville, Urbaniak is well-placed to ground McCallion’s career in its local context. He Richard Harris attributes her dominance of Mississauga’s McMaster University scene in part to the character of the place. Sprawl, he suggests, helped diffuse grass- Bibliography: roots opposition; the presence of only a sin- Urbaniak, Tom. Farewell, Town of Streetsville: gle daily newspaper allowed McCallion to The Year before Amalgamation. Belleville: Epic, get away with missteps. (It helped that most 2002.