Deathbymeteor: A rare breed, gave shiat to everyone who deserved it on all sides, understood that she was in the job she wanted and was good at, and did it until she no longer wanted to.

Having seen her at a public hearing do a 180 on a contractor who came ill-prepared... I would never have wanted to be on the wrong side of that woman.

She also once dispensed some wisdom to school kids (and it's been so long I can't remember if I was there or just read about it)... it's a classic I've heard elsewhere, but getting it from Hazel meant it was filtered through a canny politician.  "Always start by saying no, because you can switch to yes.  Once you say yes, they never want to let you switch to no".  I've used variations of that to a great deal of success in my career... namely, "Once you give people something, you can't take it away without a really good reason you can defend or without an even better replacement".

I do think she relied too heavily on development fees to keep the city running and suppress tax increases, and now that there's no space left to build I expect that'll finally start to bite Mississauga on the ass... but still, there was a reason running against Hazel as mayor was a waste of money for decades, and there was a reason she was a city mayor sometimes consulted by politicians across the country at all levels of government.