Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is a fuckin' idiot. He skipped a few hours of a council meeting in order to coach a high school football game.
Obviously coaching his football team is more important to him than doing his goddamn job. Hell, it's more important than other people doing their jobs, hence the business with him sending aides to help at practices. God help us if he ever has to choose between the city and his precious team.
Bahah ok new angle on Ford's football fun that spirals way off into self-parody: he's hijacking TTC buses now.
Why does he keep doing stupid shit even after he went to court over possible conflict of interest that could kick him out of office?
He's Rob Ford. Doubling down on the stupid/wrong/embarrassing is all he does. He was cooked up in a lab to lend retrospective dignity and gravitas to the Mel Lastman regime.
Meanwhile, the judge still hasn't decided whether or not Ford was in breach of ethics. Fucking corrupt city.
Case is with a superior court judge in Ottawa, Charles Hackland. Triggering a possibly pointless election out of a stupidity- and stubbornness-aggrevated case of small scale non-venal corruption is a bit of a shit choice. Perhaps Ford's further adventures in the abuse of power will have some last-minute influence.
It looks like Mayor Ford is too busy coaching high school football games to attend a libel trial against him.
Late reply, but with Olivia Chow considering a run, I'd be nice and happy if said 'pointless election' happened.
78% of Torontonians favourite Rob Ford movie was Beverly Hills Ninja— Stats Canada (@stats_canada) November 21, 2012
OMG that is awesome. And horribly sad at the same time. His one leg couldn't support all that accumulated stupidity.
So, in about a half hour we'll find out whether or not Ford will be removed from Office for breach of ethics. These are the possibilities I see: a) Judge comes back, says Ford knowingly violated the ethics act. Ford is removed. Ford characterizes the entire thing as a political assassination, vows revenge. b) Judge comes back, says Ford inadvertently violated the ethics act. City council votes to remove Ford. Ford characterizes the entire thing as a political assassination, vows revenge. c) Judge comes back, says Ford inadvertently violated the ethics act. City council does not vote to remove Ford. Ford characterizes the entire thing as a giant waste of taxpayer money as part of a political assassination attempt. d) Judge comes back, says Ford inadvertently violated the ethics act. City council does not vote to remove Ford. Ford apologizes for his inadvertent breach, promises it won't happen again. Just kidding, I only threw D in there for a laugh.
According to Twitter, he will be allowed to run again. Are there any competent candidates prepared to run against him?
He also got a fourteen-day reprieve. The next two weeks are gonna be hilarious. And, apparently, there's nothing to prevent him from running again.
I heard the 14 days is to allow for a smooth transition to the new administration of the interim mayor.
OLIVIA CHOW! She hasn't declared, but said she was considering it. If she wants the Mayor seat however, it's up for grabs. I have no doubt she'll win it.
Wow, I almost can't believe he actually got kicked out. This is surreal. Yes! I'd definitely vote for her.
How are the demographics looking for Olivia Chow? I know she can win central Toronto, but so could Smitherman.
I guess it depends on how fond the suburbs are/were of Rob Ford. Olivia Chow is about as not-Ford as you can get. Has he said whether he's going to run again?
It depends on how stubborn the ignorance of the suburbs are. If Ford can whip them up into believing this was a political character assassination and a waste of taxpayer money, he's just as likely to get the same level of support. Because only drooling idiots voted for him to begin with. But if his opponent can play up the corruption angle, highlight all his waste in the first year of his term (say, jarvis bike lanes), they might be able to bludgeon him into submission. But I think Smitherman largely lost because of split votes, I think Olivia Chow would soak up nearly every vote that didn't go to Ford in this next run.
Considering the mountains of bad press that was his mayoralship, those would have to be some pretty ignorant suburbanites. Ford's become a national punchline, after all.
Well, I have two barometers for this. One is that one of our neighbours in North York (leslie + 401 area) put his Rob Ford sign back up. The other is that CBC's comment sections are almost universally against Ford these days, as opposed to during the election and shortly after where his defense squad was nearly half of all comments.
If he does decide to run again, his opponents will have the easiest campaign in history. "Rob Ford would rather coach highschool football than attend council meetings. Let him."
I'm sad to see him go, in a way. I mean this is a guy who succeeded in making Mel Lastman look like an accomplished statesman (is he still alive by the way?) I kind of hope he runs again just for the comedic value. Then I hope Toronto has a referendum and kicks suburban Toronto out on its ass.
I'm sure Smitherman or Chow could win, given that Ford has done 0 groundwork (and indeed has made things a lot worse for himself) to prepare for ejection and an election campaign. The problem would be if there are two or more plausible non-Ford candidates, at which case there's a real risk of a rerun of last time. It wasn't like he wasn't a hilariously incompetent boor back when he won the suburbs before. That said I am relishing the hell out of this. Ahhhh.
