The Mayor of Toronto will be in office for XXX
more days.
Taking bets now..

a) <100
b) <365
c) until the next municipal election
d) he will get re-elected anyway
e) Gravy is for french fries and he's not french.

b most likely...a if we're lucky.

I'm not sure what to make of it. His recent controversy is coaching youth football during working hours. Sounds like you guys have bigger fish to fry. Like why in the world do you have a union contract with a "jobs for life" clause that gurantees employees of 10 (now 15) years will always have a job of equal pay even if their job is contracted out.

Then again, this guy says some crazy stuff like the biking with sharks thing.

What are the issues in Toronto? My one trip there didn't really shed much light. It seemed fairly safe, clean and well-run, but then again I'm used to the likes of DC and Baltimore.

does his campaign speech include, save the polar bears and eat moose burgers?

@trumper:
The biggest issue isn't the guys political beliefs (or that he is a malicious person) as much as it is that the guy is somewhat of an idiot.

I won't go on for too long but he is unpopular because:

1)He claims that the city was in financial trouble and was looking at a $700million+ debt. The truth is that the city is not in financial trouble and has been running budget surpluses both before and while he has been mayor.

2) He claims to be a fiscal conservative yet proposes the most outrageous and unrealistic transportation and development plans that have no basis in reality

3) he is a very brash individual and likes hurling insults a lot. He doesn't really hold the decorum that one would expect from an elected official



However the above is kind of beside the point.
The first issue is that he broke our campaign financing and conflict of interest laws (over another incident) and then further exacerbated the situation by voting on the matter in city council and (allegedly) continued to lie about it. Given that the amount was very small (I think like $3000 or something) I do believe that it was probably an innocent mistake and that council would have let him off with an apology and and offer to refund the money since this really didn't impact the outcome of the prior election. I would have been perfectly fine with that resolution. The courts could in theory remove him as mayor for this violation and given that he's being rather obtuse about it it might happen.

The second incident is that he's skipping key city budget meetings to go coach football when he should be working. And worse he allegedly is using staff to do this too (while the staff is being paid on city time). There is no problem with him (or his staff) volunteering in the community but it shouldn't be done on city time or use city resources to do so without going through the same procedure as everyone else (ie getting official sanction for this).

Agree with the above...it's his transportation and transit plans that really rub me the wrong way

Well, if it's any consolation, Politico confirmed today that the US had no plans to invade Canada. Some reporter decided to ask why Mexico and the US needed a closed door meeting without Canada saying was it about Canadian invasion plans.

The issue with Ford is that he is a strong conservative who butts heads with the left wing media groups (Toronto star) often.

He also has a bad habit of lying and then coming clean later, this has happened a dozen times or more. The most recently being the reading while driving incident, he denied for a while until the photos went viral and then he came clean. But it has happened in the past with other issues, including his arrest in Florida for driving under the influence.

I tend to follow the G&M whose editorial team hate rob ford too.

that said I think he'll probably make it all the way to the next election and will only step down when he gets beat.

i thought it was that he fund-raised for his youth football team with mayoral resources?

but it didn't make fox news, so i didn't really follow the story.. :P

politicians telling lies, h4? so he's exactly the same as every other one? what a bastard! :)

(except blagoavich, he still maintains his innocence i think, lol)

He hired university football athletes as 'special aids'. By watching them coach Ford's football team people put 2 and 2 together to ascertain he hired them for their football ability. He will never make that official but it's pretty obvious to everyone.

As martian mentioned, his ideas are way out of line with reality and he certainly does not conduct himself in a manner becoming of his position. This includes:

- spite votes against any spending on community programs.
- leaving important city meetings to go coach football.
- chasing and threatening reporters (or comedians) around his home.
- reading while driving.
- verbally attacking reporters.
- generally acting like an immature spoiled pig child.
- drunk driving arrest.

He is not a desirable figure head by any means. I love watching and listening to the things he does. It's a guilty pleasure, though, because what entertains me has far too much negative impact on so many people's realities.

But he kind of reminds me of Chris Farley.

It keeps getting better:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/...-business/article4556066/

@H4: the fact that he out and out refuses to let the star interview him ever doesn't help. I mean even Obama talks to fox news.

Given who the Globe and Mail has been endorsing lately I would hardly call them "liberal media".

Not all his ideas are completely out of touch with reality although I wonder if the better ones really are his. For example, contracting out the garbage services (although I don't believe it will save the city money in the long run) at least has some logic behind it. Making transit an essential service also makes some sense. On the labor/city services front he has actually gotten stuff done.

As I said above, his biggest problem isn't that he is a conservative (I would say the majority of people wanted a fiscal conservative as mayor), but that he behaves badly.

@oats: at least under our system coucil can pretty much block everything he wants to do if they so desires rendering him completely ineffective. As it stands now, his oppenents are very close to having enough votes (2/3rds) which would allow them to take control of the agenda and all of the boards if they so wanted. Somehow he has managed to unite card carrying members of the NDP and Conservative party together in a common cause which is quite amazing.

c

true?

no option that he'll be hacked to death by his significant other and have his body parts spread around the city? hmm, i am so not current with Toronto news.

oh, and i thought that the French used mayonaise on their pomme frittes. or is that German? what kinda gravy?

mayo and french fries is awesome. you know who doesn't like mayonaise with their french fries? al qaeda.

neato, i have something in common with people who buy french fries right before they die from a suicide bomb. well, least i get to enjoy fries a bit more often.

i'm just going to go ahead and assume you meant freedom fries!

pomme frits. chips. french fries. couch potatoes.