Skip to footer

Why Toronto Mayor Rob Ford refuses to resign

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford allegedly appears in a video that appears to show the mayor puffing on a crack cocaine pipe. Toronto city law has no provision for forced removal from office unless the mayor is convicted and jailed for a crime.

  • By Rob Gillies Associated Press

| Toronto

Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford reiterated Saturday that he won't resign despite mounting pressure for him to step aside after police said they had obtained a copy of a video that appears to show the mayor puffing on a crack pipe.

Ford smiled outside his office and said: "No. As I told you before I'm not resigning."

Allegations that the mayor of Canada's largest city had been caught on the video smoking crack cocaine first surfaced in May. Two reporters with the Toronto Star and one from the U.S. website Gawker said they saw the video but did not obtain a copy. Police Chief Bill Blair said he was "disappointed" in Ford at a news conference Thursday in which he announced that the video had been recovered from a computer hard drive during an investigation of an associate of the mayor's suspected of providing him drugs.

The Toronto Board of Trade called for Ford to take a leave of absence, saying the mayor needs to put the city first. All four major Toronto newspapers have called on Ford to resign.

Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, a Ford ally, said Friday he would meet with Ford on Saturday to express the concerns of many city council members. Kelly said he hoped Ford would make the right decision.

More damaging information has also come to light about Ford's bizarre behavior. A spokeswoman for the city of Toronto released a security incident report from city hall security guards who say they witnessed a "very intoxicated' Ford having trouble walking, sweating profusely and swearing at aides after St. Patrick's Day in 2012.

The report states that at 2:30 a.m. the mayor "visited the security desk alone with a half empty bottle of St. Remy French Brandy." The report states the mayor said his car had been stolen and that he wanted to call police. Security informed Ford his car was at home and took the bottle from him before finding him a taxi.

City officials changed course and agreed to release the document after Toronto police confirmed they had obtained the crack video this week.

Toronto City Councilor Shelley Carroll said Ford has hurt morale at city hall and urged him to take a leave of absence.

"The mayor's personal life has gradually overtaken his professional life and the findings that came to light over the week confirm many of the urban legends that existed," Carroll said. "We now know that mayor's personal life frequently, on a day to day basis, overshadows what he should be doing as a mayor."

Despite the pressure on Ford, municipal law makes no provision for his forced removal from office unless he's convicted and jailed for a criminal offense. Voters may have the final word in the October 2014 mayoral election in which Ford has said he plans to run.

Police said the video will come out when Ford's associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on drug and extortion charges. Lisi, who was released on bail Friday morning, is accused of threatening two alleged gang members who had been trying to sell the video to the media.

The mayor himself is not facing any charges. However, police have said they want to talk to him, but his lawyer has so far declined the request .

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
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

QR Code to Why Toronto Mayor Rob Ford refuses to resign
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1102/Why-Toronto-Mayor-Rob-Ford-refuses-to-resign
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe