Arthur Leslie was kind enough to let me borrow the family scrapbook to help prepare this article. To read it is to remember how often in its short history our local Red Cross has been called upon to give emergency help: the gas line explosion in Malton (1968) that destroyed the Four Corners; the crash of Air Canada flight 189 at Toronto International Airport (1978); the Texaco tank fire in Clarkson the same year; the C.P.R. derailment (1979); the fire at Queensway Extendicare (1980). By then under Marg’s direction, the first blood donor clinics in Mississauga had been well established.
Without question, her biggest challenge was the C.P.R. derailment in 1979 and the subsequent evacuation-called the greatest peacetime evacuation in history. An editorial in The Mississauga News of the day reads: “Who was really in charge of the evacuation? The Mayor, the police chief or a grandmother? For countless local residents Margaret Leslie was by far the most important official during the entire crisis. She was Mississauga’s Red Cross Emergency Chairman, a position which left her with the responsibility for guiding the lives of 240,000 homeless people.”
Recognizing her efforts she was awarded the Gordon S. Shipp Award as Mississauga’s Citizen of The Year. Her portrait hangs in City Hall. In 1987 she was awarded the medal of the Order of the Red Cross, the society’s highest award.
In 1993 the Government of Canada awarded her the Commemorative Medal for the 125th anniversary of Confederation. The citation from the Governor-General reads in part, “The award is made to those persons who, like you, have made a significant contribution to Canada, to their community and to their fellow Canadians.”
A final tribute came in 1993 when the Canadian Red Cross created an award to recognize each year the most outstanding Junior Red Cross Volunteer. Appropriately, it was named the Marg Leslie Award.
Art and Margaret Leslie lived at 2074 Breezy Brae Drive raising their daughters Judy and Sharon. Marg was named Mississauga’s first Citizen of The Year on April 29, 1980 at a gala affair held at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. The Honourable Pauline McGibbon, Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor, made the presentation.
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