Longtime Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion was remembered at her state funeral Tuesday as a 'force of nature.'
The funeral, which she helped plan in detail herself before her death, was held on what would have been her 102nd birthday and drew some 3,000 members of the public to the Paramount Fine Foods Centre.Her casket, draped in a Canadian flag and carried by an honour guard, was placed in a hearse at Mississauga City Hall where McCallion had been lying in repose and was transported in a procession to the large event centre.
Current Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie said McCallion “left an indelible mark” and that the city will never be the same without her. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien was the first person McCallion requested to have speak at her funeral. He recalled that she called “to give me hell” when he retired from politics at 70, reminding him that that the two of them had once made a pact with CTV newscaster Lloyd Robertson to all retire together.Others also paid tribute to her boundless energy.
He joked that if the former mayor had gone into federal politics, he probably would have ended up as a minister in her cabinet. He remembered that during that visit, her face lit up and she pulled out one of her signature miniature racecars. Ontario Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell remembered McCallion as a figure who “gave us honesty.”
“If you spoke to Hazel at the end of the day, she would always respond ‘I had a great day’ because she was with people and she was living a life she loved. She would happily climb into bed at night,” Rider recalled. But he shared a conversation with Erica in which she said the family not only felt the sacrifice but the enormous “pride” in what their mother and grandmother did for the public.
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