What is a summit meeting in Mississauga?
Well, for the almost past three decades, it has been when Hazel McCallion looks in the mirror and asks herself, “What do I think about that?”
Joking aside, word has come down that there will be a Mississauga City Summit scheduled for September 25 at the Living Arts Centre. It is based on the very admirable idea of drawing together the many constituencies that make up the city (arts, sports, business, non-profit, environment, social services, hospitals, volunteers, education, police, health, labour, government etc.) to look at where we are, where we want to be and how we plan to get there.
There is an understandable amount of cynicism (see opening paragraph) about high-level navel-gazing policy exercises that have a tendency to grab a lot of headlines, cost a lot of money and produce unquantifiable results.
Nonetheless, this could be a very valuable exercise, if done right.
The temptation for these sorts of events is to bring a laundry list of grievances to the table, drag out the people you think are responsible for most of your ills (i.e. the funders) and beat them over the head with the supposed validity of your case.
But rather than yielding to that urge, this event should more appropriately look at the broad picture.
Maybe the easiest way to do that is to ask ourselves some tough questions.
Such as:
What does Mississauga really, really want to be when it grows up?
Why, despite being a City of plenty in so many ways, do we have so much poverty and an underclass with virtually no support systems?
Why, despite the diversity that permeates our makeup, is that so poorly reflected in the leadership structure and participation of most of our organizations?
How, without a daily newspaper or an English-language radio or TV station, can effective communication with residents really be achieved?
How can we avoid the violence and gun issues which seem to plague every City that gets to be our size?
Why does Mississauga have such a limited number of public interest/watchdog groups, who push policy change and force public debates in most other cities?
How do we shape the maturation of our still-fledgling downtown so that it reflects more of the character of the civic buildings at its core rather than the concourse of condos at its periphery?
It may not be Yalta, but this “summit” can be a critical self-review for the municipality and a chance for its citizens to ensure we collectively have our eyes on the right prize — a human, liveable, pleasant, green place to live.