Rob Ford's Toronto

[ChesterCopperpot]

I see Ari Goldkind on the news tonight - back at his day job.
He's defending Gordon Stuckless - the “Monster of Maple Leaf Gardens”

 

[AlbertHWagstaff]

And their list of supporters keeps on growing. My office
-mate just signed up Bashar al-Assad and Jian Ghomeshi as volunteers.

Al Jazeera just signed up as a volunteer too.

 

[Kat_YYZ]

Because of this?

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/11/05/...chooses-resignation-over-suspension-thompson/

Sounds more like our version of RoFo. Now in the interest of the taxpayers, I am sure the Cons will be in a rush to introduce motions strip him of his pensions.

AoD

This really isn't fair. We criticized Rob Ford for being shameless and not resigning -- not after being convicted on COI (he appealed and won instead); not after the crack video allegations, not after the video was found and confirmed, not after his crack confession, and on and on. We complained about his shamelessness and lamented the sorry state of affairs when we had no way to force him out, because common decency suggests any normal politician with even a microbe of decency would've resigned by now.

Now you want to criticize someone for resigning? Isn't that what you're supposed to do when caught doing wrong? (I suppose he could have resigned before being convicted, but everyone's entitled to defend themselves, and he would still have kept his pension so that point is moot.) Point is, you can't have it both ways.

 

[Kat_YYZ]

I see Ari Goldkind on the news tonight - back at his day job.
He's defending Gordon Stuckless - the “Monster of Maple Leaf Gardensâ€

so what?

 

[Kat_YYZ]

Jian Ghomeshi, Rob Ford and the cost of Canadian politeness
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...-rob-ford-and-the-cost-of-canadian-politeness

As the stories about Jian Ghomeshi grow in number and deepen in depravity, Canadians have asked themselves painful questions about how and why his alleged behaviour went ignored for so long. But if the history of Rob Ford is any indication, Torontonians are experts at not asking questions about a charismatic man’s treatment of women. And while the allegations against both Ford and Ghomeshi have not been proven in court, this reluctance to even talk about it suggests the famous Canadian politeness might give men cover for how they treat women.

It may seem strange to compare Ghomeshi with Ford. On the surface, they appear to be polar opposites. While Ghomeshi gleefully exploited his hipster cred among left-voting CBC listeners, Ford gorged himself on their frustration. But beneath their brands, the stories about them are disturbingly similar.

While Ghomeshi was allegedly busy intimidating his co-workers, assaulting his dates, and playing with his teddy bear, Ford was welcoming Toronto police officers into his home to deal with domestic disturbance complaints. In 2008, Rob Ford was arrested for assault and allegedly making a death threat against his wife. The charges were later dropped, because the Crown found his wife Renata Ford’s account to have “credibility issues.†In 2011, Ford’s mother-in-law called 911 to tell them Ford was taking his two children out of the country without their mother’s consent. The Ford family said the police had it all wrong, that everything was fine, that “a lot of people you know have problems behind closed doors.†But those problems continued: in 2012, police found Renata Ford with bruises and contusions on her face and body. When asked about the possibility of abuse, she refused to cooperate.

Not that the police stopped visiting the Ford home. Sources told the Toronto Star that they visited over two dozen times in eight years, on calls that included domestic disturbance complaints. In 2013, a domestic assault call at the Ford home interrupted a sting operation.

As the stories about alcohol and drugs and secret videos mounted, Renata Ford’s story slipped through the cracks. It’s not that it the public didn’t know there had been interactions with authorities — journalists at multiple Toronto newspapers knew and some even published stories about it. It’s that the public simply did not care. A mayor who smoked crack was a tragedy. The woman who lived with him was just a statistic.

This is the same tragic figure who claimed, in crude terms, he could never have told staffer Olivia Gondek that he wanted to perform oral sex on her, because he had “more than enough to eat at home.†Everyone surrounding him knew how he behaved, from the alcoholism to the drugs to the temper to the racist remarks. And they turned away from it because it was considered too private or too personal to mention, as though his qualities as a leader could somehow be separated from his treatment of his fellow human beings. As we’ve seen, the same appears to be true of Ghomeshi. Plenty of people at the CBC suspected that something was amiss, but apparently refused to approach him about it until the Star began investigating the story.

So while it is comforting to realize that stories like Lucy DeCoutere’s and Reva Seth’s are finally being listened to, we cannot ignore the deafening silence of the women who have learned not to come forward and make themselves heard. As the recent Twitter hashtag #BeenRapedNeverReported made clear, a woman’s fear of speaking to police is often second only to her fear of her attacker. Taking a woman’s story on good faith should not be an act of radical feminism. Clearly, it still is.

 

[Irishmonk]

https://twitter.com/reporterdonpeat/status/529683489206312960

Mayor Rob Ford's office fish tank is being cleaned. I'm told the fish are being moved to his council office #TOpoli

Change the fish's name to "Ford" and presto more potential fofam candidates for the coming Ward 2 buy-a-lection.

 

[Greg Banks]

This really isn't fair. We criticized Rob Ford for being shameless and not resigning -- not after being convicted on COI (he appealed and won instead); not after the crack video allegations, not after the video was found and confirmed, not after his crack confession, and on and on. We complained about his shamelessness and lamented the sorry state of affairs when we had no way to force him out, because common decency suggests any normal politician with even a microbe of decency would've resigned by now.

Now you want to criticize someone for resigning? Isn't that what you're supposed to do when caught doing wrong? (I suppose he could have resigned before being convicted, but everyone's entitled to defend themselves, and he would still have kept his pension so that point is moot.) Point is, you can't have it both ways.

It is too bad the DelMastro court decision didn't come down last year at this time....Do you really think the Audit Compliance Committee would have swept R Ford's campaign indiscrections (2-1) under the rug if they had the above verdict in their backpocket?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

This really isn't fair. We criticized Rob Ford for being shameless and not resigning -- not after being convicted on COI (he appealed and won instead); not after the crack video allegations, not after the video was found and confirmed, not after his crack confession, and on and on. We complained about his shamelessness and lamented the sorry state of affairs when we had no way to force him out, because common decency suggests any normal politician with even a microbe of decency would've resigned by now.

Now you want to criticize someone for resigning? Isn't that what you're supposed to do when caught doing wrong? (I suppose he could have resigned before being convicted, but everyone's entitled to defend themselves, and he would still have kept his pension so that point is moot.) Point is, you can't have it both ways.

Actually no, it is patently fair. Rob Ford cannot be removed from his position by his fellow councillors - resignation is the only way for him to redress his rather lengthy list of wrongdoings. Failure to resign is a lack of ethics on his part. The guilt of Dean del Mastro has already been established and a process to remove him by the powers vested in the House is already underway - his resignation prior to that fact achieves nothing other than providing him with benefits that he should not have rightly received (and to this date, he maintains that he has done no wrong whatsoever). Again, it is a lack of ethics on his part. Totally different context, but similar failures by the pattern of their behaviour (and not the actual behaviour in a vacuum).

AoD

 

[dforthandbview]

The police were supposed to release documents related to the 18 officers used to investigate the break in and assault at 15 Windsor Rd. by November 5. There's nothing in the press about it. Shall we assume they appealed?

 

[Cooper]

It is too bad the DelMastro court decision didn't come down last year at this time....Do you really think the Audit Compliance Committee would have swept R Ford's campaign indiscrections (2-1) under the rug if they had the above verdict in their backpocket?

Good question. That audit committee decision has always been a mystery to me, especially because it basically ignored the Ford's use of Deco as a lender for several months during the campaign, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. That was the big issue, IMO. Instead, the focus seemed to be on over-spending by relatively modest sums. To be honest, I thought Doug's defence on that point was at least plausible, that the spending was the result of price disputes with vendors.

 

[DufferinMallrat]

Change the fish's name to "Ford" and presto more potential fofam candidates for the coming Ward 2 buy-a-lection.

Well, Bubbles Ford would have his work cut out for him because I hear that Hammy Ford, Stephanie's hamster, is poised for a council run. Lot of excitement over in Ward 2 about this energetic young go-getter.

 

[JWBF]

Well, Bubbles Ford would have his work cut out for him because I hear that Hammy Ford, Stephanie's hamster, is poised for a council run. Lot of excitement over in Ward 2 about this energetic young go-getter.

Well, now that they can splice three DNA strands together to produce a zygote... it's time to get one of Diane eggs out of storage.

 

[Betty3673]

Jian Ghomeshi, Rob Ford and the cost of Canadian politeness
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...-rob-ford-and-the-cost-of-canadian-politeness

Jian Ghomeshi, Rob Ford and the cost of Canadian politeness
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...-rob-ford-and-the-cost-of-canadian-politeness

Good read and very accurate info, it is a shame about Renata and the life she has to live but the Ford wife's don't have a chance
Out of all the brothers Doug is probably the best father and generous with his family, Rob is basically a bully and Renata is too scared to stand up to him or speak out. And the oldest Randy is hiding income and saying the company is in financial trouble to avoid paying for his children??? Like WTF , It's like a bad movie with a sad ending.
In the end it is the Ford children who will suffer because of their greediness and their search for power and fame.

 

[Betty3673]

Jian Ghomeshi, Rob Ford and the cost of Canadian politeness
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/co...-rob-ford-and-the-cost-of-canadian-politeness

Good read and very accurate info, it is a shame about Renata and the life she has to live but the Ford wife's don't have a chance
Out of all the brothers Doug is probably the best father and generous with his family, Rob is basically a bully and Renata is too scared to stand up to him or speak out. And the oldest Randy is hiding income and saying the company is in financial trouble to avoid paying for his children??? Like WTF , It's like a bad movie with a sad ending.
In the end it is the Ford children who will suffer because of their greediness and their search for power and fame.

 

[JasonParis]

It's not clear that DoFo actually wants to win the leadership vs manufacture a loss in order to launch a protest party.

Splitting the right worked magically federally for a good number of years. Go Doug Go!

Considering that the Libs won a majority by only 4 seats, the outcome would have been quite different had the PCs won just a few Toronto ridings.

I think their majority is actually 9 seats.