The City Of Toronto Act requires the mayor to “act as the representative of the city both within and outside the city.” So Rob Ford is, officially and otherwise, the living symbol of my civic identity. In that respect, I am not an impartial observer. It’s personal. His thundering lunacy reflects on me, and on all of us.
Rob Ford was representing us on his Newstalk 1010 radio show this past weekend when he allowed his invited guest, David Menzies of Sun News Network, to speculate on whether it would be fair to ask “practicing homosexual” George Smitherman whether he’s likely to die of AIDS. Menzies then accused the Toronto Star of sending “its most effeminate reporter” to cover the mayor so that if Ford popped him one, it would look bad. For good measure, the guest taunted a CBC personality for being a recovering alcoholic, and called one member of council a “liar” and another “bitter, with daddy issues.” The mayor of Toronto laughed as the guest spewed venom and said, “That’s phenomenal.”
Rob Ford was representing us on the evening of May 2, when he went into a public park near his house, threatened a Toronto Star reporter with physical violence, and took his phone from him. He was representing us when he told transparent falsehoods to the media about that reporter trespassing on his property and harassing his children. Even he acknowledges now that those things are not true, though he repeats them anyway.
He’s representing all of us when he refuses to participate in the annual Pride celebration, and he was representing all of us when he swore at a 911 operator because he was unhappy that a TV comedian had staged an ambush interview in his driveway. Of course, as we now know, the mayor and his family rack up a lot of 911 call time.
In various ongoing legal proceedings he is accused of libel, election financing improprieties, and a conflict-of-interest violation. (None of these accusations have been proven.) He has been repeatedly reprimanded by the city’s integrity commissioner. He is an admitted repeat violator of the laws against driving while using a cellphone.
The saddest thing is that I could go on. Under the administration of Sideshow Rob, another blow-up is always just around the corner.
These examples have nothing to do with policy or with the partisan political spectrum—that is a whole different area for disagreement and possible embarrassment. This is about being capable of acting like a minimally trustworthy grownup, which should be a minimum qualification for any employee—especially one who is representing you and me.
The mayor has two key roles in his job. The first is to act as the executive of the city government, to lead city council in forming policy. In that regard, he has been somewhat relieved of his duties by a majority of councillors who have publicly opposed him—and defeated him—on a series of issues at council meetings. The second element is to be the representative of and ambassador for the city. Before Ford was elected, many of us predicted that his long history of being a walking outrage machine could be a problem when he became mayor. But many of us also hoped he’d grow into the job. We thought the mantle of authority might alter the outlook and moderate the temper of the ultimate angry outsider. Inside the highest office of Canada’s most important city, surely the guy will stop acting like a belligerent adolescent, no?
But, alas, a year and a half into the job, there has been no injection of gravitas into this petulant personality. The mayor is our crybaby-in-chief; apparently incapable of controlling his temper, demonstrating empathy, telling the truth, or managing the ever-expanding circus of his personal life.
He wallows in his own most humiliating episodes, calling the press or going on the radio to brag about them. In so doing, as our chief magistrate and ambassador, he humiliates us all.
Original Article
Source: the grid to
Author: Edward Keenan
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