Hazel McCallion receives 2018 Honourable Lifetime Achievement Award
Posted in: Awards
Date Posted: 2018-11-13
Organization Name: The Brilliant Minded Women Foundation
Has the nominee, in the duration of her lifetime (living or posthumously), impacted the lives of her community, fellowship, family, or business? Has the nominee affected positive change and whose legacy will be remembered for future generations?
Hazel McCallion, C.M., LL.D., B.A.Sc., is a Canadian political and businesswoman who dedicated more than 40 years of service to the residents of Mississauga, and 36 of those as the city’s mayor. First elected in 1978, she is the longest-serving mayor in the city’s history, having been successful in 12 municipal elections. Her supporters gave her the nickname “Hurricane Hazel” because of her outspoken political style.
Born in 1921 in the community of Port Daniel, Québec on the Gaspe Coast, her father, Herbert Armard Journeaux, owned a fishing and canning company, while her mother, Amanda Maude Travers, was a homemaker and ran the family farm. The family also comprised two older sisters and two older brothers. After graduating from Québec High School, Hazel McCallion attended business secretarial school in Québec City and Montréal. She has stated, especially while receiving university honours, that she would have wanted to attend university, but her family could not afford it. After secretarial school, she began her career in Montréal with the Canadian Kellogg company and was soon transferred to Toronto in 1942, where she helped set up the local office. Over 25 successful years later, Hazel McCallion left the business world in 1967 to devote her life to a career in politics.
That career began in Streetsville, Ontario, where she and her husband, Sam McCallion, owned property. Her first campaign was in 1964 for the position of deputy reeve, and it was unsuccessful. But, by 1970, Hazel McCallion became Streetsville’s mayor; and, in 1978, after her town was amalgamated with the Town of Mississauga and Town of Port Credit to form the City of Mississauga, she was elected as Mississauga’s mayor. At that time she sat on virtually every committee in the city and in the Peel Region. Since then, during her 12 terms in office as mayor, spanning 1978 to 2014, Mississauga grew from a small collection of villages to one of Canada’s largest cities. Today, it is home to over 750,000 people and 55 of the Fortune 500 companies.
Hazel McCallion has shared her ideas and experiences at meetings and speaking engagements throughout Canada and the world, she sits on numerous boards of community organizations and businesses, and she has received countless awards, including the Leadership in Public Service Award from the International Economic Development Council, runner-up for the World Mayor Award, Membership to the Order of Canada, and the Key to the City of Mississauga, just to name a few.
A mother of three, on her 90th birthday in 2011 she was assessed by Dr. Barbara Clive, a geriatrician, who stated that “at 90, her gait is perfect and her speech is totally sharp. She’s the poster child for seniors.”