Toronto: The 101-year-old Hazel McCallion, former mayor of the Canadian city of Mississauga, has accepted the role of the director of the greater Toronto airport authority for three years contract, The Guardian reported.
When McCallion, also known as "Hurricane Hazel", retired as the city mayor, she was 93. Canadian Transport Minister, Omar Alghabra, congratulated her on her new venture.
It was last week, she got the job extension announcement, which was less than a month after she renewed her position as special advisor to the University of Toronto Mississauga.
McCallion is known for her blunt nature and "pugilistic style of governing", the Guardian reports and was present in Ontario politics for decades. Here, a school, a library, a parade and a basketball team were named after her and a light rail project, announced recently, was also named after him.
McCallion was born in Port-Daniel, Quebec, in 1921 as the youngest of five children during the Depression. She found work at an engineering company and played professional hockey for five Canadian dollars per game. When the engineering firm got shifted to Toronto, she developed her interest in local politics in her middle ages. She held many municipal roles and ran for mayor of Mississauga in 1978, and defeated the incumbent.
She remained the city's mayor for 36 years.
However, she faced accusations and court cases on "conflict of interest" twice, once in 1982 and then in 2009.