Ongoing Rob Ford crack cocaine scandal

[BoMac]

Here's latest in another entertaining day in the Rob Ford scandal:

A judge ordered that the remaining amount of police documents to be released. A report indicates that those documents reveal it was believed that a hooker was on the mayor's office payroll.

Key moments from Mayor Rob Ford’s hard day at City Hall - The Globe and Mail

[bono_212]

I was so stuck between whether John Candy or Chris Farley would've been a better leading man in The Rob Ford Story, but with the introduction of Doug Ford to the story, I no longer have to choose

[elevated_u2_fan]

This entire thing has been a nightmare. If these two mouth-breathers somehow manage to stay in office and get re-elected, I'm moving to a different city.

[anitram]

I watched bits of the council debates today and the hilarity was on display. From the one councillor referring to Ford smoking "crackaine", to Ford himself demanding that other councillors submit to mandatory drug testing to his crazy brother having to pull him away as he approached a councillor in a menacing way (a second time), just so much material here and so little time.

[anitram]

Must read for anyone following along:

Judge orders release of more material in Mayor Rob Ford investigation | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun

[Irvine511]

We thank you, Canada, for this comedic gold.

[biff]

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...56343320,d.b2I

Before the tumultuous night was over, they told police, Ford would call a cab driver a “Paki,” deride several top aides as “Liberal bitches,” burst into tears about his deceased father and tell a female staffer that “I banged your pussy.”

Provost later took the “inebriated” mayor home in a taxi. During the trip, Ford told his staffer to get out of the taxi so he could talk to an unknown man about to set up a meeting, Towhey told police.
When they arrived at the mayor’s Etobicoke home, Ford “he jumped out of the taxi, jumped into his own car, reversed it very quickly almost hitting the taxi and Provost and left the area.”

[Jive Turkey]

Ford is all the things people say he is, but Minnan Wong is a bit of a weasel himself

[Kieran McConville]

Honestly, who among us haven't smoked crack or kept a hooker on the payroll in our private moments?

[PhilsFan]

[digitize]

How exactly did this guy get elected?

[cobl04]

I fucking love this bloke. What a great story... Have you been covering it personally bomac?

[Jive Turkey]

I love that he won't leave and they can't make him leave. For the past 2 years, all the anti-ford people in Toronto have been salivating every time something came up that they could possibly use to get him kicked out of office. They thought they had succeeded about a year ago before he appealed a petty conflict of interest charge; the contrast between the gross gloating on the day he was 'removed' to the day he won his appeal was amusing. Now he admits to smoking crack, but they still can't get him removed. It's hilarious. I'm not a Ford supporter, but the guy was elected democratically (admittedly, by the population living in the suburbs and not in the city central). It really rubbed me the wrong way that they were trying to subvert the voting process (keep in mind, the vast majority of my friends are Ford haters... probably by a 9 to 1 majority if not more). I'm enjoying watching them lose their minds on Facebook. The mayor of Toronto doesn't wield power in the same way most mayors of major American cities do, so I'm just enjoying the entertainment. I'm not embarrassed by the whole thing.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by digitize

How exactly did this guy get elected?

There's a bit of a civil war in Toronto. Motorists on one side, many of whom commute from outside of the city proper, and cyclist on the other, most of whom live downtown. Ford's platform appealed to the needs of the people from the outskirts, who happened to have a larger voting block

[anitram]

It's a bit more complicated than that IMO.

First, yes, JT is right that this is a "suburb" (not really suburb but outer regions of the City of Toronto) vs. "downtown" issue. For Americans it's important to note that Toronto did not develop in the way that some US cities did where the downtown core is an abandoned, poor ghetto. The downtown is thriving and VERY expensive to live in. The outer regions are where people who either couldn't afford to live downtown or who didn't want to live in cramped circumstances moved to. Yes, there are exceptions, for example, not far from Rob Ford is one of the wealthiest areas in the city where houses are on par with an area like Rosedale that's immediately north of downtown. But anyway, for many decades there was no investment in any kind of infrastructure for the people in these areas so the only recourse they had were their cars. It's easy to say "they just want to drive" but you go out and live in one of these areas and you will quickly see that this is your only option and it is not of your making, it is due to the lack of foresight of politicians over many years. So yes, Ford's voting block is hostile to infrastructure spending downtown (which they don't see as beneficial to them), hostile to high property taxes (many of them have large properties), and hostile to what they see as waste in the municipal government which has brought them personally very few benefits (actually probably true).

The other thing to keep in mind is that we had a very leftist mayor before this who IMO spent our $ very recklessly and irresponsibly. There is a LOT of waste and inefficiency in our city. I know that is the rallying cry of the conservative but it's absolutely true even from where I am standing. The City was amalgamated with the outer regions years ago but this amalgamation, forced down everyone's throats by the conservatives in power was touted as promoting efficiency. It just hasn't played out that way. A visit to one of the municipal offices and you'll quickly see how ridiculous the system is.

Case in point, when we lived in Little Italy, a section of Toronto where street parking is common, you had to get a permit to park on the street. I had to go down to one of the city offices to procure a permit for our second car. I was the only person in line and there were about 6 or 7 clerks just sitting there twiddling their thumbs. There is NOT enough work to justify all of them being employed but this is a legacy situation. What's more, it makes absolutely no sense that we haven't moved to online applications for parking permits, like every normal city in the 21st century. But again, this is the sort of "waste" that a lot of people saw and Ford's dumb, though populist "I'm going to cut the gravy train!" resonated with them.

For the rest of us it's a shitty situation because yes, Ford is an incompetent moron who was incapable of actually achieving much. But the alternative was a spend-like-there-is-no-tomorrow candidate (Pantalone) and another candidate (Smitherman) who was embroiled in his own corruption scandal and is commonly referred to as "Slitherman". I didn't vote for Ford, nor would I vote for Ford, but it's not that hard to see how he got the votes. It was the perfect storm.

[Pearl]

So if the mayor of Toronto - or any Canadian city - doesn't have the same amount of power as a mayor of an American city, what power does he have?

This is an interesting chance to get to know the political system of other places in the world. And I agree that this scandal is very entertaining!

[PhilsFan]

Rob Ford is talking about eating pussy, so today is off to a terrific start.

[PhilsFan]

[anitram]

Originally Posted by Pearl

So if the mayor of Toronto - or any Canadian city - doesn't have the same amount of power as a mayor of an American city, what power does he have?

He essentially functions as one of the 44 councilors (ridiculous that we have that many but that's a story for another day).

He has some powers in that he can form his executive committee and so on, but in day to day governing he's just one of many.

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by anitram

He essentially functions as one of the 44 councilors (ridiculous that we have that many but that's a story for another day).

He has some powers in that he can form his executive committee and so on, but in day to day governing he's just one of many.

So he's like the head councilor?