Toronto City Council may have “stripped” Mayor Rob Ford of his powers yesterday, but in the same motion, they stripped themselves of their own democracy and dignity.
Three hundred and eighty three thousand, five hundred and one Toronto voters sent Ford to City Hall to stop the out-of-control, taxpayer-sapping Gravy Train in 2010. In a 37 to 5 vote, yesterday the same council responsible for the Gravy Train, flipped the bird at voters in a move more shameful than anything Ford ever did.
Barring a criminal conviction--which does not exist--Council does not have the power to physically remove Ford--or any other mayor--from office, so they went for the jugular,: gutting his office budget by 60 percent and opening the floodgates for Ford’s mayoral staff to throw in with the deputy mayor.
It’s a high-handed move bound to have supporters of Ford Nation chanting “Reinstate Ford, Now!” But we’ll have to wait and see how viral that move goes.
A cabal of councillors, well-paid lobbyists, their leftwing mainstream media enablers, and fevered mayoral contenders, including the likes of John Tory, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Karen Stintz, and Olivia Chow had digitally delivered Ford over the Internet as Disgraced Mayor of All Time.
Ford’s girth leaving them downright giddy reached all the way to sparsely populated villages around the globe. They wanted Ford on a diet--starting with his big mouth.
So caught up are the mainstream media in the digital death of Ford, an Associated Press story indicates that Ford does not have the right to defend himself against political and media tormentors:
“On Sunday, Ford had described himself as the ‘best father around’ as he continued with his shameless attempts to ride out the media storm surrounding him”. (Associated Press/Daily Mail, Nov. 18, 2013.) (Italics, CFP’s).
“The beleaguered official spent the weekend carrying out a series of media engagements in an attempt to repair his tattered reputation which has made him a global laughing stock and left his rivals attempting to do everything to strip him of his political powers.”
But the mainstream media, who once famously released a grainy YouTube showing ‘Fat Man’ Ford stopping for takeout at a local Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, may have missed the boat on what was coming last night, due to the raucous council meeting where council left Ford MINO, Mayor in Name Only.
When AP and Daily Mail reporters spotted Rob and Doug Ford early Sunday morning, outside the downtown studios of “the tabloid Sun News Network” where they were about to tape their first Current Events television show, ‘Ford Nation’, they were too late in sharing it with other media.
If they had only shared that ‘information’ when they discovered it, the council-media-mayoral-wanabe cabal may not have been blindsided within hours of yesterday’s council meeting.
Mayor gone-digital Ford and his brother the councillor gave first-person accounts of the entire Ford foofaraw on prime time, Sun Media TV with guests Toronto Sun scribe Joe Warmington and fearless Sun Media host Ezra Levant.
Levant’s tell-all account of what is really happening in the battle for power among Toronto’s ‘Fancy People’ is downright gripping and should be seen by all 383,501 Ford voters.
You can see it for yourself below:
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
