Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who was the subject of a lot of media attention earlier this year when Gawker and other media sites said they had seen a video of him smoking crack, has some explaining to do:
June 26 was a typical day at work for Mayor Rob Ford: He criticized illegal posters that he said blighted the city’s bus shelters and utility poles and fended off questions from the media about a controversial assistant. His evening was not that unusual, either – in that it included an out-of-the-way meeting with suspected drug dealer Alessandro (Sandro) Lisi, according to a Toronto police affidavit that was ordered released Thursday.
That evening Mr. Ford drove to one of Toronto’s largest parks to watch a child’s soccer game, where he was joined on the sidelines by his friend Mr. Lisi, the affidavit states. After a brief conversation, Mr. Lisi retrieved a white plastic bag that “appeared to be weighted” from his car, which he placed, along with some cans of Minute Maid, in the front seat of Mr. Ford’s car, the affidavit states.
The Toronto Police also have found the video and turned it over to prosecutors as part of an extortion charge against Lisi. I assume the next act in this play is for Lisi to flip on Ford.
The Toronto Star’s fuck-you to Ford, written by the publisher, is also worth a read.
JPL
The only think that I know about Ford is that he smokes crack. The Star mentioned that he was popular, but didn’t say why his policies were popular. Maybe one of our Canadian friends will enlighten me.
Hawes
He’s a populist, which is to say a demagogue.
I am curious about one thing: is “Latterly” a Canadian word?
raven
Handshake Drugs
NotMax
Only have a finite amount of pertinent attention, and the mayor of Toronto doesn’t qualify for inclusion among the myriad of things of greater import.
EconWatcher
The publisher is right that only a decently funded, mainstream local paper can really do the digging to hold local officials to account. I really worry about how much more corruption we’re going to say without these papers. It’s a cliche but it’s true that they no longer have a viable business model, and they’ll all soon be gone.
tom
Ford is the Kwame Kilpatrick of Canada.
Just One More Canuck
@JPL: I’ll take a stab at it. He’s basically a garden-variety right-winger who got to be mayor because his main opponent (Furious George Smitherman) in the mayoral election was an even bigger jerk than he is and felt entitled to be mayor. By most accounts he was a fairly decent city councillor who looked after his constituents, maybe accounting for his popularity, but working on police budgets and deciding transit policy is a lot harder than yelling at city workers to go get someone’s kitten out of a tree
Boudica
@NotMax: This.
OzarkHillbilly
This is work of a scale and seriousness that can only be undertaken successfully by what is now called “the mainstream media.” Others lack the resources, the experience and the credibility to call a senior official to account.Too true and all too sad for it’s demise. Imagine a local blogger facing the mayor’s lawyers in a court of law.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@JPL: Ford is the rough equivalent of a Tea Partier. He campaigned on ending “the gravy train” of waste in Toronto, and commissioned a study that found out that there wasn’t really that much. His campaign slogan was “Respect For Taxpayers, but he managed to cost the city millions in cancellation fees by cancelling an already funded LRT project. Instead he wants to put in a subway in the burbs which amounts to about three stops at a cost of nearly a billion dollars.
One difference between Ford and the Tea Party is that Ford’s block of resentful voters isn’t as lily-white as most of the Tea Party is. The big split in Toronto politics is between the downtown core and the inner suburbs, which were amalgamated back into Toronto back in 1998. The downtown core went for this (admittedly uninspiring) opponent, and the suburbs went for Ford.
Ford himself does not seem to be the driving force behind his political career. His brother Doug seems to be the brains behind the operation, and often seems to be Rob Ford’s spokesman. The Globe and Mail had a report earlier in the year alleging that Doug Ford used to deal drugs. At least one of the men involved with Doug’s dealing operation, Dave Price, is on the Mayor’s staff.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@Just One More Canuck: I thought it was more that Smitherman was slimy and incompetent, and had his own share of baggage. He’s had his own substance abuse issues.
Just One More Canuck
@Bitter and Deluded Lurker: You’re right in saying that Smitherman was/is slimy and incompetent. My recollection of his campaign was that he left the provincial cabinet to run for mayor and was expecting a coronation. Ford certainly is able to exploit the differences between downtown and the suburbs.
Botsplainer
Somebody was on LGF last night and was claiming that Fords spokesman was demanding that the police chief resign.
Amir Khalid
@Hawes:
“Latterly” is a perfectly cromulent English word, I can assure you, even if it’s not as popular as “of late” or “recently” or “nowadays”.
Anya
@Botsplainer: His lawyer is demanding the video to be released. They’re desperate.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
FYI.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@Botsplainer: Yeah, trashing Blair looks like the latest talking point.
His lawyer asking for the video to be released (as Anya said) is another. Since the court probably won’t release the video in the near future, they can pretend to be honest (“Look, we want the video released”) while at the same time trashing its authenticity (“It’s a fake, and no one has seen it”).
They don’t really have a lot to work with. The only other thing they have left is the rehab card, but they should have played that when Gawker first broke the crack video story.
feebog
The tell will be when his senior staffers start resigning. They all know the score. If and when the rats start jumping ship, that will be the beginning of the end.
Bitter and Deluded Lurker
@feebog: Actually, most of his senior staff resigned shortly after the original crack video reports came out.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
Ford doesn’t sound like much of a mayor. That he was stupid enough to get caught using drugs may be part of the reason that he’s not much of a mayor.
@Amir Khalid:
“Cromulent” is so, well, cromulent. Thank you for teaching me that neologism.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
Ford doesn’t sound like much of a mayor. That he was stupid enough to get caught using drugs may be part of the reason that he’s not much of a mayor.
@Amir Khalid:
“Cromulent” is so, well, cromulent. Thank you for teaching me that neologism.
DJ
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): He’s a loud mouthed, arrogant, right wing blowhard…I’m surprised he wasn’t hittin that pipe in his office. Hard to be a functioning crackhead for long, methinks…
Hugely
@raven: love that song – mebbe most favorite from wilco