Skip to footer

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: 4 reasons the drama keeps getting stranger

Rob Ford, the colorfully-dressed, foul-mouthed, crack-smoking Toronto mayor beloved by both the Canadian press corps and late night TV comedians, seems to be breaking new ground with just about every passing day.

In a raucous session Monday, Toronto's City Council voted to strip the mayor of yet more executive powers, a move that Ford called a "coup d'état." At one point, Ford appeared to collide with another councilor as he ran across the chamber while getting into a shouting match with members of the audience.

Monday also saw the debut of the embattled mayor's own TV show called Ford Nation. In the pre-taped show on Canada's Sun News network, Ford hit back at critics and insisted that "the past is the past."  

Since winning a decisive victory in 2010 and becoming mayor of Canada’s largest city, Mr. Ford has captivated, stunned, and embarrassed not only Torontonians, but Canadians nationwide. For now, he’s vowing not to step aside, and wants to stand for reelection a year from now.

Here’s a quick look at Rob Ford’s staying power:

1. He now has his own TV show.

Chris Young/The Canadian Press/AP
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford attends a council meeting as councillors look to pass motions to limit his powers in Toronto on Monday, Nov. 18, 2013.

  • By Mike Eckel Correspondent

Ford had a political radio talk show for some time until its cancellation just over a week ago. Now a relatively small Canadian channel called Sun News Network has signed a deal to give Ford and his brother Doug, also a city councilor, their own TV show. The show, which premiered Monday night, was likened by Sun News Vice President Kory Teneycke to a "Barbara Walters special."

"We are in the age of reality TV and it doesn't get more real than the Fords," Mr. Teneycke said.

1 of 4
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.