Toronto's Mayor Swept Away by Avalanche of Peanuts

Disclaimer: I voted for Mayor Ford and continue to support him.

Toronto's much embattled mayor, Rob Ford, has been forced out of office by a court ruling in a matter of conflict of interest and of improper solicitation of funds.

The text of the court ruling can be found at the following URL:

www.thestar.com...

This is a quote from the judge's decision:

[48] I recognize that the circumstances of this case demonstrate that there was absolutely no issue of corruption or pecuniary gain on the respondent’s part. His contraventions of the municipal Code of Conduct involved a modest amount of money which he endeavoured to raise for a legitimate charity (his football foundation), which is administered at arm’s length through the Community Foundation of Toronto. His remarks to City Council on February 7, 2012, focused at least in part on the proposed sanction against him, in circumstances where many informed commentators would contend that the principles of procedural fairness, audi alteram partem, should have allowed him to speak (although not to vote). The respondent’s actions, as far as speaking against the proposed sanction is concerned, was an unfortunate but arguably technical breach of s. 5(1) of the MCIA. The only pecuniary interest the respondent had in the matter before Council was the financial sanction sought to be imposed upon him. . . .

During his term of office the mayor has been accused of all sorts of gaucheries, he has been hounded by segments of the press for his truculence and "arrogance" and portrayed as a buffoon. He came to office on a wave of indignation against free spending feather bedders on council, promising to cut out the fat (in the budget) and get rid of people who weren't committed to fiscal prudence.

He has delivered on that part of his agenda.

In the area of transit planning he sailed into very choppy waters but resolutely battled on for subways and for an end to the Hundred Years War On the Car. That issue is still up in the air and will be the central part of any upcoming election for mayor in Toronto.

Ford intends to run again and I intend to vote for him. However . . . I have a message for the mayor.

All of those people that you despised for free spending, feather bedding and arrogance in past administrations started spending peanuts and slowly spent more peanuts until they were spending mountains of peanuts. Be warned. See the error of your ways. You represent us. We are behind you. Don't embarrass us and don't slip on peanuts. Toronto deserves better than this.

We know you can do it. Ford for Mayor!!!

reply to post by ipsedixit

so i take it youre ok with this kind of douchery

City of Toronto Workers Destroy Free Community Food Garden Amid Growing Food Crisis
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by ipsedixit


Hey, if it walks like an elephant, trumpets like and elephant and smells like an elephant..it's an elephant.

Originally posted by DerepentLEstranger
reply to post by ipsedixit

 

so i take it youre ok with this kind of douchery

City of Toronto Workers Destroy Free Community Food Garden Amid Growing Food Crisis
www.abovetopsecret.com...

No, but I'm not OK with the kind of douchery that prevailed in the pre-Ford era either. Ford's peccadillos are trivial compared with the status quo ante Ford where being on City Council was a license to plunder, and where the previous mayor upset numerous commercial applecarts in the city, costing numerous people their jobs.

Ford for mayor!!

Christie Blatchford has a good article in The National Post that suggests, to me at least, that contrary to popular opinion, the judge in the Ford case actually did have wiggle room to avoid forcing the mayor out of office.

fullcomment.nationalpost.com...

Had Judge Hackland been looking for an out — to address what he pretty plainly agrees is a bad law — his best bet was Section 4 (k) of the statute, which says that removal doesn’t apply if the pecuniary interest “is so remote or insignificant in its nature that it cannot reasonably be regarded as likely to influence the member.”

If Blatchford could find this section of the law, you can bet that Ford's lawyers, on appeal, will also find it and will be asking the appeal judge why Judge Hackland did not find it or act on it, when it would seem to be the option of Solomon in the case, all things, particularly the cost of another election in Toronto, considered.

If there is one thing that can always be counted on, it seems, in Toronto politics, it is the relentless reach for the low benchmark. There is no issue too big or too weighty that cannot be sent reeling as in this case, by what appears to be a carefully planned cheap shot.