I live in Mississauga, and on Oct. 25 I will be one of the few residents who will not vote for Hazel McCallion. This is not to say that I see any viable alternative, but that’s exactly the point — her authoritarian presence has silenced any voice that was not hers and killed debate on every issue.

This is not just an academic observation about democracy, but rather recognition of the basic need to open up the city to new ideas and build a vision for the future.

Mississauga is a city without an identity. It’s known in Canada mainly because it has the nation’s longest-serving and oldest mayor. Over the last 30 years, McCallion has built her own legacy, but not the legacy of Mississauga.

The latest events reveal that her once undisputed leadership now is openly challenged and she does not have the authority to put things back together. Nonetheless, she will win the next election because, sadly for most voters, the debate over integrity is not a priority as long as people see clean streets, buses running on time and low taxes.

And that’s what I want to talk about — the myth of her good administration.

She is a skillful politician who has alternated between wielding a club to crush her opponents and dangling carrots to reward her friends. She has been adept at using other people’s ideas and taking advantage of their plans but has no vision of her own and runs her office by instilling fear instead of building consensus.

McCallion, as mayor of Streetsville in the early ’70s, fought against amalgamation with the City of Mississauga and lost. The fight in favour of the merger was led by visionary people such as businesswoman Mary Fix and a young physician, Dr. Martin Dobkin, who won the election in 1973 by fighting against the developers.

He was the one who first introduced administrative changes, including what are now known as “development levies.” Builders were forced to finance all services and community projects in any area they were developing. It was that initiative, later adopted by other municipalities, that helped all suburban cities, not just Mississauga, to keep property taxes down.

Only later did McCallion join Dobkin, and in 1978 she became mayor of Mississauga, the city whose amalgamation she had opposed. And it was the fiscal system implemented by Dobkin that helped her to keep taxes in check. At one point in the early ’90s, the money raised through the “development levy” were almost 90 per cent of the city’s reserve fund of more than $1 billion. The millions of dollars from the interest accrued were used to balance budgets without tax increases. There was nothing magic about it.

Mississauga was also able to keep taxes low because, unlike older cities such as Toronto, the new infrastructure did not need much maintenance. But in a few years, things will change and taxes in cities such as Mississauga and Vaughan will increase as sharply as in Toronto.

Since 1978, Mississauga has grown to become the sixth largest city in Canada — but has remained a suburb of Toronto. One of the reasons is McCallion’s decision to create the city centre in the Burnhamthorpe and Hurontario area, a cathedral in the desert. She ignored beautiful Port Credit, an area ready to become a tourist attraction able to compete with Toronto.

There are many cultural and sports activities but Mississauga is not an icon for any of them. It’s basically a comfortable dormitory, heaven for developers, yet still with public housing problems.

The next few years will be crucial for the future of the city but while other municipalities are bringing in new blood, Mississauga is stuck with a mayor elected when Jimmy Carter was president of United States and David Crombie mayor of Toronto.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

McCallion will win again, but the struggle to regain control over councillors who want their jobs back is going to be ugly. I see nothing but trouble on the horizon for Mississauga.

Angelo Persichilli is the political editor of Corriere Canadese. His column appears Sunday.

Read more about: