This is getting international media attention. I just checked… he’s front and centre on CNN and the BBC, and is mentioned on the Sydney Morning Herald and Al Jazeera.
I am so embarrassed.
Can anyone tell me whether this happened 20 years ago, or last year, or is still ongoing?
What do you mean? The substance abuse is ongoing (Called out for public drunkenness over the weekend). As far as I know, his crack use only came to light because of the supposed video. He’s been known as a bit crass for years.
Within the last year, when he was mayor.
The crack or the mayorship? He’s still the mayor of Toronto and the allegations of drug use are for relatively recent events.
He’s still in office because he is a “fiscal conservative”. Right or wrong, that stance is so popular these days (even in Canada) that it overcomes any faults a politician might have (Exhibit B: Mark Sanford), and ordinary people in his riding are absolutely coming out of the woodwork to form a human chain of support around this guy.
And he wants the police chief to resign for being disappointed in him.
You can’t make this stuff up!
As a proud former constituent of Marion Barry, I say, “That bitch! She set me up!”
He’s still in office because he’s monumentally stubborn and so to date refuses to resign, and there is, apparently, no legal mechanism save conviction on criminal charges for getting rid of a mayor for being a drunken crack-smoking wreck prior to the next election.
I wish he’d chosen some other drug.
Whenever I hear “Ford” and “crack” in the same sentence, my traitorous brain inserts the word “sweaty”. :eek:
Somehow this post made me realize how much Rob Ford reminds me of Chris Farley.
Better that he be employed. When he’s out, he’ll end up pistol-whipping people on the streets and taking their money to feed his crack habit.
So how good/bad is he at his job?
That’s the paradox, many Torontonians (especially in the suburbs) think he’s doing great, and he probably is in some ways. I’ve heard the phrase “saved the city over a billion dollars in wasted spending” numerous times to describe him.
So he’s a “functioning addict”.
“Okay, yes, I did fondle a 12-year-old girl. But in my defense, I’ve been doing a lot of bath salts.”
He comes from family money.
The cost savings issue is debatable, for it opens up differences of opinion as to what should or should not be cut, and what should be expanded.
There’s also a great difference of opinion concerning urban transport. People to the east tend to like his wanting to extend the subway, but people throughout the city want better surface transportation spread across wider areas.
These are debatable issues, so while I disagree with his positions, I would not criticize him for them either.
Where he really falls down is in how he fails to act as a figurehead representing Toronto to the world, in how he fails to get city council to work together, in how he deliberately alienates people who disagree with him, and in how he fails to set an example of a decent human being.
I notice that Ford keeps insisting people asked him the wrong question and that he’s not an addict. Talk about protesting too much.
And never saw a library he didn’t want to close.