By Shepard Ambellas | November 13, 2013 | 11:47am EST
Things are heating up in Toronto as the city’s mayor said “no apology is necessary” after being verbally attacked by members of the Toronto City Council Tuesday.
TORONTO, CANADA – JULY 24: Toronto mayor Rob Ford watches the Toronto Blue Jays MLB game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 24, 2013 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
TORONTO (INTELLIHUB) — The erratically behaved Mayor Rob Ford says he’s “not going anywhere” as his colleges continue to press him to take a leave of absence after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine and threatened to kill an individual in a reported drunken rage earlier this year.
The mayor’s crack use surfaced back in May as Toronto police announced that they actually possessed video evidence of the mayor’s secret lifestyle. All the while the mayor has maintained that he does not have an addiction to the dangerous illicit drug, but admitted to smoking it in a drunken frenzy before.
However, as of now it looks as if it could prove to be a chore for the Toronto city council to remove the mayor. KOMO News out of Seattle reported, “the 44-member City Council is grasping for ways to shunt the larger-than-life leader aside and govern without him until next year’s municipal elections.
It is an unprecedented effort but in some ways, it may not be a stretch. Toronto’s mayor already has limited powers compared to the mayors of many large cities in the United States. He is just one voting member in the council and his power stems mostly from his ability, as the only councilor elected by citywide vote, to build consensus and set the agenda. That authority, many council members say, has evaporated in the crack scandal.
“We really just have to build a box around the mayor so we can get work done,” said councilor John Filion, who has introduced one of two motions in the council designed to isolate Ford.
The first motion, which goes to a vote Wednesday, would call on Ford to take a leave of absence, apologize to Toronto residents for misleading them and cooperate with police. If he refuses, the council would ask the province of Ontario to pass legislation to remove the mayor from office.”[1]
To top it all off, mayor Rob Ford bobble-head dolls surfaced in the city proceedings on Tuesday, adding a new element to the mix. The Chris Farley impersonating mayor was said to have even autographed a few of the dolls for supporters.
“It won’t be the end of Ford Nation, they just put up a billboard in support of him last week,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political professor at the University of Toronto. “The movement and the anti-government sentiment it embodied that got him elected will stay alive … His base will remain strong whether or not he’s removed from office.”
After winning office in 2010, Ford took measures that pleased his suburban voter base, including abolishing an annual $ 60 vehicle registration tax, squeezing valuable concessions out of the union representing 6,000 city workers, and reducing costs by contracting out half of Toronto’s garbage collection. Ford claims to have saved taxpayers $ 1 billion dollars in the process, though councilors dismiss that claim as highly inflated since he has increased the cost of transit, among other public services, along with hiking property taxes.”[1]
Some say this is an attempt to derail the good things the mayor has done for the city and believe that the mayor’s removal could lead the city into a new era of tyranny.
“Ford’s friend and occasional driver Alexander Lisi was also in court in a separate case on Tuesday. He is on trial for extortion and a number of drug charges. The judge set a judicial pretrial date for the drug charges for Jan. 14.
It’s believed the extortion charge is related to Lisi’s efforts to obtain the purported crack video.
Ford, 44, has served as the mayor of Toronto for the past three years. He still has a year to go in his current mandate and has said he intends to seek re-election.”, reported CBC News.[2]
“The reason I drank or did drugs was not because of stress, but was out of sheer stupidity”, the mayor admitted Wednesday in a city council meeting.
Update 12:20pm EST: The Mayor stood up during a city council meeting Wednesday, calling out other council members as hypocrites saying, “You all are standing up here like you are holier than thou. The question is, have you ever smoked marijuana?” The mayor continued saying, “I know what the answer is”. as the floor maintained silence.
Sources:
[1] Toronto’s City Council seeks to isolate crack-smoking mayor – KOMONews.com
[2] Rob Ford facing ‘public flogging,’ says brother - CBC News
Writer Bio:
Shepard Ambellas founder, director and editor-in-chief of Intellihub.com, is a researcher, investigative journalist, radio talk show host, activist, and filmmaker. Follow him onTwitter.
For media inquires, interviews, questions or suggestions for this author, email: shepard@intellihub.com or telephone: (347) 759-6075.
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