Wed 23 Mar 2016 In: Politics and Religion View at Wayback View at NDHA
Toronto's controversial former crack-smoking, alcohol-swilling and antigay mayor, Rob Ford, has just died. Why was this figure such an embarrassment to the Conservative Party of Canada and why was he tolerated for so long before his eventual fall from power? Born in 1969 in Etobicoke, a Toronto suburb, Ford was the son of a businessperson and one of four children within his wealthy, conservative Catholic family. For a while, Rob Ford pursued his gridiron football professionalism dreams but ultimately settled down to study Political Science at Ontario's Carleton University. From 2000-2010, following local council amalgamations, he became a Toronto City Councillor, and developed a reputation as a conservative city councillor bent on cutting local government expenditure and council services. During that period, he got into trouble for making racist comments about an Italian-Canadian fellow councillor and opined that if gay men got HIV/AIDS, they 'deserved' it in 2006. Despite these glitches, Ford was popular in his Etobicoke ward, and secured enough popular support to become Toronto Mayor in 2010. In the event, those council service cuts didn't occur, except at Toronto's City Hall. There were problems with the Canadian Union of Public Employees and Ford's desire to contract out council services, especially waste management and disposal. When he attempted to declare Toronto Transport Commission an essential service, that brought problems with CUPE and other unions. However, Ford was probably best known to many New Zealanders for adverse news coverage about his alcohol and drug problems, especially with crack cocaine. In 1999, Rob Ford was caught within a drunk and drugged driving incident, having drunken too much alcohol and ingested measurable amounts of cannabis. In 2006 and 2011, there were further incidents of alcohol abuse at council venues, while in March 2013, the Toronto City Council raised concerns about mayoral cocaine consumption. Later that year, local Toronto media outlets such as Newstalk 1010, theToronto Sunand Canada Television all concentrated their attention on the existence of photographs of an earlier crack cocaine smoking incident which showed Ford in the vicinity of gang members, which was also provided to the Toronto Police Department upon request. As mayoral staff left his employment, the Toronto City Council stripped Ford of his mayoral authority, essentially rendering him a figurehead. Possession of crack cocaine is an offence under Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act 1996. In February 2014, he objected to the Toronto City Council's use of the rainbow flag for city Pride celebrations but no-one else on the Council gave his objections any heed. In September 2014, Ford disclosed that doctors had found a cancerous growth in his stomach, later identified as liposarcoma, and that therefore, he was withdrawing from the concurrent Toronto mayoral race. In any event, he was trailing New Democrat councillor Olivia Chow and Conservative candidate John Tory, who ultimately won the Toronto mayoral election. Sadly for Ford, the growth proved aggressive, and between bouts of chemotherapy, managed to retain his Etobicoke council ward, stating that if health and circumstances permitted, he would once again run for Toronto Mayor at the next municipal election in 2018. He was hospitalised in October 2016 after campaigning for former Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and scans revealed two cancerous growths on his bladder, this time malignant and inoperable. His religious social conservative and populist enthusiasts rallied around the dying fallen icon and eulogies were given by his former Council colleagues, family and political sympathisers, before his death on March 22, 2016. Recommended: Robyn Doolittle:Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story: Toronto: Viking: 2014 Ed Keenan:Some Great Idea: Good Neighbourhoods, Crazy Politics and the Invention of Toronto: Toronto: Coach House Books: 2013. Theo Moudakis:The Continuing Adventures of Rob Ford: Toronto: MacArthur and Company: 2012 John Fillion:The Only Average Guy: Inside the Uncommon World of Rob Ford: Toronto: Random House Canada: 2015. National Post:How Rob Ford Happened: A History of the Toronto Mayor from the Pages of the National Post: Toronto: Harper Collins: 2013. Ashifa Kassam: "Rob Ford, former Canadian Mayor, dies at 46" Guardian: 22.03.2016:http://www. theguardian.com/wor ld/2016/mar/22/rob-ford-dies- cancer-former-toronto-mayor Mark Twohey and Johanna Schneller:Mayor Rob Ford: Behind the Scenes:New York: Skyhorse: 2015. Craig Young - 23rd March 2016