Breaking News: Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford dead: Ford's office

Coming across the wires now. Will add more / sources when details emerge.

No info as of yet on the nature of the death.

ETA 0
* - Ex-Toronto Mayor Rob Ford dead at 46

TORONTO — Rob Ford, the pugnacious, populist former mayor of Toronto whose career crashed in a drug-driven, obscenity-laced debacle, died Tuesday after fighting cancer, his family says. He was 46.

Ford rode into office on a backlash against urban elites. He cast an image sharply at odds with Canada’s reputation for sedate, unpretentious politics.

Click link for more info.

Looks like he finally succumbed to Cancer.

I read yesterday that he had been placed in palliative care, and sedated to deal with his pain. He had bladder cancer I believe, and the chemo failed. The one time his illicit drug fetish might have saved him...
Thoughts and prayers to his family. He was only 46 years old...

a reply to: Xcathdra

Aww, well as much as Ford has his issues, nobody deserves a death by cancer.

RIP Sir, you did good for the city of Toronto, personal issues aside.

~Tenth

RIP Mr Ford

He provided all kinds of buffoonery while actually handling Toronto's finances responsibly. I think the most memorable and actually in a weird way admirable was fluently speaking Jamaican patois while doing a drug deal. Despite his antics I had to grudgingly admit he knew every nook and cranny of his city and spoke to everyone regardless of his position as mayor.
No hiding behind conference room doors for him!

Condolences to his family.

a reply to: Xcathdra

crack kills, kids


R.I.P. Mr. Ford. May your city (and many others) remember you. I've heard it's a very clean and nice city - salute

Shared few beers with the guy at Sullie's where he used to come quite often. I liked his populist behavior and coolness. I feel so bad about his passing. Now all the paid pens and two faced pricks who sold fake morals to the people while in their private lives are as deprived and drug/alcohol addicted as Ford was, can relax. Their number one enemy is dead. And they should take pride for driving him to an early grave with their vicious and constant attacks. Even the healthiest of people would get cancer with all that poor Ford went through. May God repay the same all of them who were unjust to him!

a reply to: Xcathdra

This news saddens me . Prayers for family and friends of Mr. Ford . He was a guys guy .Someone who the MSM took on as someone who should not have been there . We sometimes are given the crooked path of others while forgetting that those really big corks at the top let a few smaller ones slip by and occupy the places of power .Rob was one of us .Not perfect but still one of us . He will be missed .I shriek to think that Trump may also be one of us ......Rest in peace good buddy .:>(

I just wanted to write a few words on the subject of Rob Ford, but first, condolences to his family and friends. There were many more of the latter than you might think. He was bigger than life in every way, and loved.

Some members and readers will know that I started several threads during his campaign for Mayor of Toronto, a campaign that he was forced to retire from because of the disease that ultimately took his life.

I really worked hard on behalf of Mr. Ford and his brother Doug, during that campaign (insofar as my somewhat obscure writings can be effective) and also during the time when rumors of his drug related activities were being circulated in the press. I tried very hard to show that Mr. Ford was the best choice for Toronto, despite the growing scandal around him. I still believe that. I think that he was treated in an unconscionable way by the press, particularly the Toronto Star, which went out of its way to ridicule both Mr. Ford and his supporters during his first, victorious, campaign for mayor and then never let up on him afterward. (I have to admit, not without provocation. lol.)

Mr. Ford was concerned about an attitude of entitlement on City Council and spending practices that were not suitable to the needs of the city and the size of the budget.

His solution was to cut costs. That was a step in the right direction and he was great at it, saving the city several hundred million dollars. Unfortunately, that approach could only go so far.

As I worked through that campaign, researching the issues, particularly as reflected in the urgent need for upgrades and additions to the transit system, it dawned on me, thanks to what I believe was a once in a lifetime "fankness lapse" that occurred in a report issued by the Government of the Province of Ontario, that the city of Toronto was being systematically gamed by the other levels of government and suckered into "partnerships" on infrastructure financing that would leave the city perpetually buried under a mountain of debt. You can read about it in my thread, Toronto's Race for Mayer: Why the Feds and Province Endorse Tory and Not Ford, at the following link:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's a hint:



Always required to pay 1/3rd of costs, the city (Tronna) had nothing like the capacity of the provincial (Kathy) and federal (Steve, now Justin) governments, its so-called "partners", to recover those costs through tax revenues. It became clear to me that Toronto had paid the cost of subway expansion many times, over the decades, but that the federal government was doing an abysmal job at channeling tax money back into the municipalities across the country, including Toronto.

I was annoyed when I found out that Rob Ford never went to meetings of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, where this sort of thing was discussed and strategized over, but when I found out that the Federation was chiefly interested in inventing new taxes as a solution to the problem, I understood why Mr. Ford was not interested in talking to them.

The new Trudeau government has given indications that infrastructure is on the front burner now, and that they will be funding it to some extent. They absolutely should be doing this. Failure to do so is the equivalent of dereliction of duty.

The federal government has spent far too much on pork, i.e., projects handed to supporters for favors done. (1.1 billion dollars for security stuff for the G20 conference, granite imported from Quebec for the Toronto waterfront project) and also too much on quasi criminal military operations [including the latest koo koo notion, military bases overseas] as we tag along on whatever dashingly picturesque folly our whimsical neighbor to the south decides to get involved in, not to mention the Lockheed Martin welfare fund to save the F-35.

I think Mr. Ford would have welcomed the Trudeau government's change of focus, "pivot" in American parlance, discretely of course, since he was a conservative. (That was part of the Ford brothers' problem. They could only go so far in excoriating the Conservative federal government.)

Anyway, now he's gone. Farewell Mr. Ford. I know you will be going to a good place because you were loved by many. As a Buddhist, I believe you will be back again to fight the good fight.

I didn't know you, but I will miss you. You put Toronto on the map like no other politician ever did.

May Rob Ford RIP.
Prayers for family and friends of Mr. Ford .

As much as people liked to crack jokes about his personal life and drug/alcohol issues, the fact of the matter is that Rob was a people's mayor per se.

He was a homegrown down-to-earth type of person (faults and all) and refused to fall in line with the rest of the stiff shirts and instead, hit the streets and talked to the average joe about city issues.

He kept it real... and in the process, did a lot of good for the city of Toronto.


RIP Rob Ford.

originally posted by: AccessDenied
I read yesterday that he had been placed in palliative care, and sedated to deal with his pain. He had bladder cancer I believe, and the chemo failed. The one time his illicit drug fetish might have saved him...
Thoughts and prayers to his family. He was only 46 years old...

That's the most painful cancer to deal with. My uncle had that. In the end he was so doped up with morphine to relieve the pain (the lining of the bladder disintegrates, exposing raw tissue to concentrated ammonia) that all his other organs were failing due to the chemical load.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Hey Xcathdra!
I'm happy to see that this thread is filled with positive sentiments towards Mr. Ford (RIP).

I was born in Toronto, and really hated what the media did to him. I hated the late night comedians laughing at him on the television. I liked him, for being real...flaws and all.

I hope his family can feel the love, and know that everybody didn't think he was a villain. From what I know, he was a good guy and a good mayor.

jacy

a reply to: jacygirl

Everyone has their Demons...

He tried to do good and chose public service. In his case that should trump the issues.