Candidates Like Rob Ford Make Me Appreciate The Dysfunctional Family Known As Montreal City Hall

I don’t live in Toronto and this shouldn’t concern me all that much. However, my entire family does live there,  and I’m concerned about how life for them in that city would be, particularly with a wingnut like Rob Ford.  What I find absolutely mind boggling is how does a supposedly progressive city like Toronto even entertain the idea of voting this cantankerous evil twin of the Pilsbury Doughboy?  If any of  my Toronto readers from the Prog bloggers care to shed some light on this one, please do so…I’m at a loss here. I asked my mom why. She hasn’t a clue neither, nor do my brother or his girlfriend for that matter.  Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Cut the waste at city hall. Seems to appeal to so many.

So, let’s check the appeal of Rob Ford, shall we? Fern Hill has done the heavy lifting and compiled a rather impressive resume of the esteemed Mr. Rob Ford.

Rob Ford on AIDS prevention…

“(AIDS) is very preventable, if you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS probably, that’s bottom line.” With respect to the increasing rates of women contracting the disease, Ford said; “How are women getting it? Maybe they are sleeping with bisexual men.”

Rob Ford on bike lanes…

“I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”

Rob Ford on why oriental people are taking over…

“Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines. That’s why they’re successful in life. I went to Seoul, South Korea, I went to Taipei, Taiwan. I went to Tokyo, Japan. That’s why these people are so hard workers (sic). I’m telling you, the Oriental people, they’re slowly taking over.”

Rob Ford on G20 summit police brutality…

“I think the police were too nice. I would have had a zero tolerance approach.”

Don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to see what Rob Ford considers an adequate amount of police brutality.

Some more choice ‘colourful’ comments from an excellent round-up at the Globe:

April 17, 2002: During a council debate on whether there should be homeless shelters across the city, rather than only downtown, Mr. Ford says: “This is an insult to my constituents to even think about having a homeless shelter in their ward. And you want me to have a public meeting to discuss this? Why don’t we have a public lynching?”

(There’s video at the link.)

Yesterday, he called himself a ‘family man’ in a apparent swipe at married-with-child-but-gay George Smitherman.

Yeah, he’s a family man all right (from Globe link).

March 26, 2008: After Mr. Ford’s wife, Renata, calls police to their home, Mr. Ford is arrested and charged with assaulting her and uttering a death threat. A month later, prosecutors drop the charges because inconsistencies in Ms. Ford’s accounts make a conviction unlikely. “It’s the happiest time in my life when my family’s all together. … That’s all I wanted from the very beginning and that’s what I have now,” Mr. Ford tells reporters.

He also has truthiness and anger issues (Globe again):

April 15, 2006: Security guards remove a drunken and belligerent Mr. Ford from a Maple Leafs game after he shouts insults at an out-of-town couple. The attacks began after the man asks Mr. Ford to be quiet. Mr. Ford responds: “Who the fuck do you think you are? Are you a fucking teacher?” Failing to get a response, he turns his attention to the man’s wife: “Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?” The couple realizes the angry man’s identity after Mr. Ford leaves behind a business card. When reporters confront Mr. Ford with the couple’s complaint, he denies being at the hockey game. A day later, he comes clean, saying he lied because he felt “embarrassed and humiliated.” He also says: “I had one too many beers and I sincerely apologize.” Mr. Ford later e-mails the couple an apology, writing: “My complete lack of manners were unprofessional, immature, and do not in any way reflect my usual behaviour in public.”

Ford very recently also called for a cap on new immigrants in Toronto.

Ain’t he charming? After reading that and listening to my family after having visited them a few weeks ago, I have to cringe every time I hear or read about how Super Ford will just clean up that wasteful spending. Why do I get the feeling that in the wonderful world according to Rob Ford that the city of Toronto and its’ inhabitants are a waste? In fact, like Steve hates Canada, and handles it by ignoring facts to change it to his whims; Ford seems to hate Toronto to the point he wants to change it with total disregard for facts and realities.

All this Toronto municipal election talk is bringing me back to the Montreal municipal election campaign in November of last year with the rather odd assortment of candidates running. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? Trust me, after the depressing stories of Rob Ford and the abysmal candidates running against him in Toronto, I think you may find amusement in last year’s Montreal’s municipal campaign.

We have Louise Harel, a separatist who was instrumental in that whole forced  merger of Montreal debacle and will more than likely cut services. Her former right hand man, Benoit Labonte was caught lying about his relationship with a business man who was awarded some municipal contracts. He resigned in disgrace. He later told Radio-Canada that City Hall was run like the Mafia.

She claims she will ‘broom’ city-hall. All well and good, but as I mentioned above, she doesn’t have clean hands.

Next:

Our incumbent, Gerald Tremblay, mired in so much scandal who said he would raise property taxes come January in order to maintain services. The highlight  of  Maclean’s the past week:
“Montreal is a corrupt, crumbling, Mob-ridden disgrace.”

And, I’ve saved the best for last. The third place candidate, Richard Bergeron.

Enter our third candidate and would probably be the most fun: Richard Bergeron, a quirky sort and an Islam convert who had all kinds of conspiracy theories like George W Bush and 9/11:

“…terrorists might not have been behind 9/11. He said “two of the four crashes are particularly suspicious. Photos of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crash sites never show debris of downed planes, he said. He speculated the Bush administration carried out the attacks as an “act of state banditry of titanic proportions” – that is, it used them as a pretext for invading Iraq and controlling its oil reserves.”


Here is how he justifies his smoking to La Presse: he smokes to stay healthy because, he said, it reduces his lung capacity and keeps him from injuring himself when he runs marathons too fast.

Read full details here.

You know something?  The unhappy (or happy; depending how you look at it) dysfunctional family that is Montreal City Hall suddenly look very sane to me. I am so appreciative of our scandal-ridden mayor with our construction contractors and their alleged ties to organized crime (unreported of course; watch Super Vic’s mustache turn up to a handle bar now) nowadays with his merry band of councillors and borough mayors, as well as the colourful opposition.

Mom, Dad, if Ford the bad fat assed wingnut becomes the next mayor of Toronto, come back home to Montreal where my extended dysfunctional family from city hall and I will give you a warm welcome.