Anti-American
Carolyn Parrish angling for Hurricane Hazel’s job?
By Judi McLeod
Monday, November 20, 2006
Carolyn Parrish, who made headlines on the eve of the US-led invasion of Iraq when she said: “Damn Americans. I hate those bastards”, made a successful comeback to the political realm, in last Monday’ municipal elections.
The same politician, who once stomped on a George W. Bush doll for television cameras, is now Councillor Carolyn Parrish, of Mississauga Ward 6.
“I’m where I belong,” she told reporters who had asked whether city council might be too small a pond for her after being on the national stage.
“I’m not a big fish at all,” she said. “My priority is to fit in with a well-run city council with a fantastic mayor.”
But some suspect that it’s not fitting in with but taking over that the new councillor has in mind.
Mayor Hazel McCallion, who captured her 11th straight mayoral with a whopping 91 per cent of the vote, is now 85 year’s old.
Parrish’s return to hometown politics follows a two-year stint out in the cold after having been unceremoniously ejected from former Prime Minster Paul Martin’s Liberal caucus.
Parrish, who never met a television camera she didn’t like, said she decided to run municipally because she can be herself and have a more immediate effect on peoples’ lives.
Rumours are rife that she entered the race with dreams of being a possible successor to Mayor McCallion, when the mayor, affectionately dubbed “Hurricane Hazel” steps down.
But waxing coy at her Streetsville Portuguese Club victory party and making her entry carrying her 3-year-old grandson Jake, she said she runs “one election at a time.”
“In four years, I might just decide I’ve had enough.”
Politics is in the 60-year-old’s blood. Prior to becoming Canada’s most stridently anti-American MP, she served several terms as a Peel District School Board trustee.
Less than gracious to her main challenger Ron Starr in what she considered was a tough race, she criticized her opponent’s campaign style.
After one two-year term (1978-80), Starr did not seek re-election, opting instead to return to the private sector as a development consultant. Parrish roundly criticized him for using signs stating: “Re-elect Ron Starr”. There were five other challengers vying for the seat.
Parrish will be one of only two new faces on Mississauga council. Former Peel public school trustee Sue McFadden, won in the newly created Ward 10, defeating 22 other challengers.
A big fish in the publicity department, Parrish still has detractors who don’t agree with her anti-American stance.
Mississauga council is not likely to afford her international attention. Councillors are confined to debating issues like whose ward has the biggest potholes, and garbage pickup. They don’t get the opportunity to make speeches about international affairs.
She’s soon likely to discover she’s not the first to think she can replace Hurricane Hazel.
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