It is not uncommon for political candidates and elected politicians to speak about civility. As likely as not, those who speak about it, such as Barack Obama, are in the end the least civil of those who are said to be lacking in civility.
When the 2014 municipal election officially got underway, Mayor Rob Ford was running for re-election while his brother Doug, currently a councillor in Ward 2, said he would run his brother’s campaign and then would leave the political scene. The brothers’ nephew, Michael Ford, registered to run for council in Ward 2 and hoped to replace his Uncle Doug in the seat Rob held for 10 years.
All of this changed on Sept. 12, the day the registration period closed. Two days earlier the mayor was hospitalized with what was later diagnosed as a cancerous tumor in his abdomen.
Moments before the time for registration ended, Rob withdrew his name as a mayoral candidate and registered to run for council in Ward 2. Doug registered to run for mayor while Michael withdrew his name as a council candidate and is now running for school board trustee.
The candidate in Ward 2 who has been given the best opportunity to beat Rob or any other Ford is Andray Domise. Domise, as the lefties like to say, self-describes as a writer and a financial planner.
The Toronto Star calls Domise “the anti-Ford.” He is campaigning on the platform the Etobicoke community has been underserved by Doug Ford during the past four years. According to Domise, the current councillor spent most of his time downtown and failed to take steps to help the community that in Domise’s opinion is underserved. Fair enough.
On Tuesday, the mayor was released from Mount Sinai hospital after undergoing his first round of chemotherapy. He was not seen in public until Friday when he began knocking on doors in his bid to win the council seat he held between 2000 and 2010.
During the time he was recuperating at home, Domise thought it would be a right friendly gesture if he took flowers and a card to the home of the ailing mayor. In order that his “good deed” not go unnoticed, he invited the media to accompany him.
Pretty well the entire Toronto mainstream media, with the exception of the odd journalist here and there, are anti-Ford. They were pretty well camped out in front of the mayor’s house since the crack scandal emerged last year. Their obsession with Rob Ford is such that when someone borrowed his car while the two were in rehab together and proceeded to get charged with impaired driving that resulted in the vehicle being towed, the media continually staked out the impound yard. We were subjected to countless pictures of Ford’s lonely Cadillac Escapade sitting in the lot.
When the mayor was diagnosed with cancer and the Ford-hating media claimed they were only concerned with his health, they complied with the family’s request for privacy. That was until Domise gave them an excuse.
When Domise came to Ford’s house, flowers and card in hand, the door was answered by the mayor’s wife, Renata, who immediately slammed it shut. According to Doug, Renata called him crying, saying she opened the door to see media trucks setting up.
While this was clearly a political ploy at the expense of the ailing Ford who at that time was recovering from the effects of chemotherapy, Domise strangely claimed his actions had to do with “civility.”
Domise issued an apology that was weird to say the least. He claimed his gesture, that was obviously a stunt at the expense of a man suffering from cancer and his family who are going through a rough time, was “to publicly denounce the vitriol and hate that has been shown by some in response to the mayor’s illness.”
Yes, there is hate out there. While most people who do not like the Fords will be content with them being voted out of public office, there are those who will not be happy until Rob Ford is dead after suffering a long, slow and painful death. How a mini-thinker like Domise thinks he can combat this hate with a bunch of flowers and a card defies logic.
Domise also apologized for saying it wasn’t clear how expressing his well wishes could be construed as being political. Of course it was political. He apparently now recognizes the error of his ways. He says he should have dropped the flowers and the card off at Ford’s campaign office where he would also have invited the media.
Well Mr. Domise, here is a lesson in the civility you seem to crave. Unless you are a family member or a close friend, you don’t show up unannounced at the home of someone who is recuperating from the effects of chemotherapy. And if you do, you don’t invite the media who rightly or wrongly have hounded Ford pretty much through his career and unmercifully so since the cracks scandal began.
Domise should be happy. He got the publicity he so badly wanted out of the actions that caused so much upset to the Ford family.
After smoking crack in one of his famous drunken stupors, Rob Ford would never have pulled a stunt like this. It was a shameful action on the part of a councillor wannabe.
