It’s fair to expect a big-city mayor, especially one holding the top job for more than 30 years, to know what’s going on at city hall. When problems erupt, it’s reasonable to expect such a leader to assume responsibility and effectively diagnose what went wrong. Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion has failed on both counts.

According to her testimony before a judicial inquiry probing a variety of questionable dealings, she signed a controversial hydro agreement 10 years ago, the biggest in the city’s history, without even reading the final version. Seven years later, it was discovered that the deal she blindly signed was significantly different from what had been approved by city council.

McCallion told the inquiry’s Justice Douglas Cunningham that she relies on her staff to ensure bylaws and agreements receiving her signature are complete and correct. But that system failed on a deal in 2000 giving a major pension fund 10 per cent of the city’s hydro utility. Mississauga council approved a shareholder agreement on Nov. 29 but, just five days later, a clause was inserted giving the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System veto power over future moves by the utility. That one-sided addition would likely have been defeated by council, but it never came to a vote. Two days later, McCallion signed the deal on behalf of the municipality.

City manager David O’Brien was in charge of negotiations; he was aware of the hastily added veto clause and testified, in the absence of evidence, that he “very probably” informed the mayor. McCallion insisted that O’Brien did not bring the new clause to her attention, adding that if he had, she would have notified councillors. “Such a major, significant change to an agreement must go to council.”

Despite their divergent testimony, McCallion praised her former city manager Wednesday and attempted to put the fault on “outside legal counsel,” hired to help with the hydro contract. In other words, McCallion maintained that the staff she relied upon to process documents for her signature, so she didn’t have to read them, failed on this key deal. Yet outsiders were to blame.

She needs to understand that what’s at stake here isn’t a mere procedural matter — it is an affront to democracy. City council’s will was circumvented and it went undiscovered for years. Given McCallion’s hands-off attitude, one can’t help but wonder how many other deals have been signed where the public good is short-circuited.