Underdog (16 page)

I always thought, given his weight, his poor eating habits, and his various addictions, Rob Ford would end up with a stroke or a heart attack. Who could have predicted that he'd be forced to drop out of the 2014 mayor's race after being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of malignant liposarcoma? The day the diagnosis was confirmed, I found myself reduced to tears because no human being, no one, deserved to be treated with such disrespect by the media, the public, and his fellow politicians.

No matter how much one might say that Rob Ford was his own worst enemy and that he brought on his own problems, I liked and even identified with him. Perhaps it was because I myself was bullied and treated as an outsider for many of my early years – or because I knew Mr. Ford's heart was in the right place about getting waste and mismanagement under control, he actually tried to do what he promised (unlike most politicians), and no one was prepared to let him do his job – that I forever felt protective towards him. I can truly say I would offer a stray dog far better treatment than the absolutely visceral disdain with which his many detractors treated him even after he passed away. Let's remember that Rob Ford was never charged with anything. Nor was he convicted of anything. The behaviour of Toronto's chattering classes hit a new low during his regime.

After a brave 18-month fight – with the same toughness he displayed as mayor and councillor – Rob Ford succumbed to a very aggressive and rare form of liposarcoma on March 22, 2016 at the young age of 46. He left behind his wife Renata and two children, Stephanie, 10, and Dougie, 7. A few days before his death, when I heard he was in palliative care and it was just a matter of time, I wept uncontrollably. My tears were not just over the loss of a decent, generous man, a grassroots politician this city has not seen in a long time – who may have been deeply flawed and suffered with addictions, but who had a good heart, the very best of intentions and who truly cared about the residents he served. But I cried out of anger for the way he was bullied, and mocked for his entire fifteen years at Toronto City Hall (as a councillor and mayor) with the kind of vitriol and contempt I'd never seen levelled at any politician and probably never will. He could never catch a break from the left-wing media, his fellow politicians, Premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto's elitists, who persecuted him with very personal attacks on his appearance, his weight, his manner of speaking, and those who forced him to defend himself against a long list of vexatious court cases and frivolous integrity complaints. When he finally admitted to his addictions and was at his lowest, they kicked him like a dog, stripped him of his powers, and turned their backs on him in council. Even after he passed away, there were those in the leftist media who didn't have the class to allow a few hours pass by before they once again beat up on him.

There's no doubt in my mind, watching the way he was treated, that despite claiming to have very thick skin, the stress of it all got to him – first manifesting itself in
drug-fuelled behaviour and then in the very aggressive cancer that eventually cost him his life. The left wanted him out of the picture and I say, with not the least bit of cynicism, that they got their wish.

Needless to say, I was disgusted when on the day of his funeral the very leftist councillors who'd terrorized him with delicious delight throughout his time as councillor and especially mayor, turned up to allegedly “pay their respects”. It sickened me to see Shelley Carroll, Josh Matlow, Janet Davis, Paul Ainslie, and Pam McConnell huddle two pews in front of me and I found it near revolting to see the man who treated him with absolutely vile contempt, Adam Vaughan, parked in the front row of the church, in plain sight of the Ford family and the TV cameras, with Ms. Wynne right behind him. What about the lack of respect these hypocrites showed him in life? I can only conclude that these narcissists have no shame.

But Mr. Ford had the last laugh at his leftist detractors, even in death. When I left the church, the crowd that lined up to pay their last respects to a man labelled by Toronto's chattering classes as a racist and a homophobe, did not just number in the thousands. They were people of colour, visible minorities, immigrants, and the average ordinary working-class resident – people who'd been touched in some way by Mr. Ford's populist appeal and genuine concern for the little guy, who'd been helped by him, and who'd been disenfranchised by the very elitist politicians who made Rob Ford's life a living hell.

If I'd collected $10 for every council debate during my fifteen years at City Hall that dragged on for six, seven, eight hours – after which the already pre-ordained decision was reached – I'd be a very wealthy woman by now. It represented to me the most ridiculous caricature of democracy in action – foolish grandstanding by a long list of blowhard politicians to give the illusion that they were actually listening and coming to a collective decision when, more often than not, I knew that they'd already horse-traded behind the council chambers or had arrived at council knowing how they'd vote.

The politicians on Toronto city council were so dysfunctional that I often joked that they couldn't even run a lemonade stand if offered the opportunity to do so. Despite all their yammering that Rob Ford was divisive, rest assured that decorum did not suddenly return when he, their alleged arch-nemesis, Rob Ford, was sidelined. Take what happened during
the very same month – May 2013 – that the beleaguered late mayor found himself facing allegations of smoking crack cocaine (allegations he subsequently confessed to five months later). Council quickly slipped into that same chaotic Barnum & Bailey routine I'd witnessed many times during my years as a City Hall columnist. Smelling blood and lacking direction from a mayor's office that was coming apart at the seams, the politicians felt they had even greater licence than normal to waste endless hours with petty bickering and nonsensical platitudes. It was a debate Mr. Ford and those who still supported him did not want to have because it was a waste of time. He had no interest in propping up the Ontario Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne with more taxes – this time for transit infrastructure – considering they'd thrown billions of dollars down the drain in the eHealth computerized health record and Ornge medical helicopter scandals, in addition to cancelling gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville to buy two seats in the 2011 election.

But council, in an act of defiance, voted to have a special meeting anyway, claiming democracy would not be served if they chose to refrain from debating the issue. Considering they made a great show of saying, as the ever insufferable then NDP councillor Adam Vaughan enjoyed repeating like a broken record, that councillors just did their work around the embattled mayor, this would have been a perfect opportunity to prove just that. Mr. Vaughan and his colleagues had their chance to show that council was not dysfunctional – that they could operate efficiently and effectively on an issue, with or without the mayor in charge. But it was and is just not in their DNA – or that of most politicians at any level – to do so.
Sadly, most councillors were not capable of recognizing they'd be perceived as bigger fools and ridiculous hypocrites if nothing came of the debate.

The irony was not lost on me that councillor Joe Mihevc – a career NDP politician – pronounced at the outset of what was to become a painful and highly irrelevant ten-hour debate that this was the “mature, adult conversation” they'd been meaning to have (on whether or not to raise more taxes) for a long time. I sometimes wonder if Mickey Mouse is his speech-writer, but that comment may be unfair to that lovable rodent. Mr. Mihevc is one of those insufferable NDP troughers who excuses everything he does – particularly his spending with impunity or the budget excesses for his pet projects such as the St. Clair dedicated streetcar line – as being for the “greater good.” There's no doubt in my mind he rewarded those who supported him with city grants and ignored, or even punished, those who dared criticize him. Mr. Mihevc's almost incestuous relationship with Artscape – a not-for-profit organization that provides affordable housing for alleged starving artists courtesy of repeated funding from City Hall – comes to mind. Nevertheless, most days I ignored what he had to say because it was so predictable, and so outrageous.

But that day in May, I realized how completely out of touch politicians of his ilk were if they had the audacity to kick off a ten-hour debate – which produced nothing of substance – with such pap, and actually believe it. After councillors had yapped themselves silly in front of an audience of the usual unemployed or union suspects and left-wing, anti-Ford bloggers with various rings stuck in every orifice who regularly packed the public gallery of Toronto City Hall and enabled such grandstanding, they decided not to make
a decision. I repeat, they made NO decision. They could have made a strong statement to the premier that Toronto's councillors were not prepared to do her dirty work and foist any new taxes on their residents until the province got its own house in order. Instead they copped out, leaving the tough decision to any other politician who might be prepared to take the heat at election time.

That's if such an animal exists. It was in fact business as usual that day. During my time watching this pack of misfits at City Hall, I found that whenever they could weasel out of a decision by deferring it for further study, they would, and Mayor John Tory has certainly continued that tradition. That was forever a given just before election time, unless, of course, the left wanted to hand their stakeholders a few special grants before they stepped down from office, as David Miller did to the arts community in the summer of 2010. Take the proposal by Robert Deluce, CEO of Porter Airlines, to expand services at the Billy Bishop City Centre Airport beyond the short-haul flights he offered with his Q400 aircraft to allow whisper jets to fly in there. The whisper jets would be able to handle flights to such destinations as Vancouver, Calgary, and Miami, and Mr. Deluce repeatedly said there was a demand for the same kind of service he was already offering but to more distant destinations. His had proven to be a very successful formula, despite former mayor David Miller's misguided environmentalist efforts to stop him in 2003. It was perfectly natural that he would want to expand the business to respond to market demand for longer-haul flights that would preclude the need for travellers to make their way to busy Pearson airport. But knowing there was strong opposition from a group calling itself NoJetsTO – one made up of the pampered
Toronto Island squatters and leftists purporting to be environmentalists, who could make councillors' lives miserable in the October 2014 election – those same councillors opted in April 2014 to send Mr. Deluce's expansion proposal back for further study (code for sending it to a dusty shelf somewhere). This was despite the fact that Mr. Deluce had provided the city with environmental and noise studies up the yin-yang. Heaven forbid these cowardly babies should have had to answer tough questions at the door during the 2014 election about the proposed expansion, or that they would have actually stuck their necks out to make a decision.

One only has to look at Toronto's pathetic subway system to find a perfect example of the years, never mind decades, of political foot-dragging, indecision, and petty infighting. For that alone, the politicians who've represented the Greater Toronto region for the past three decades should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. How any of them can visit cities like Vienna, Milan, Jerusalem, London, and Barcelona, to name just a few, without feeling embarrassed with our underground system is beyond me.

But this situation is no different than the ten-hour Toronto City council debate on transit taxes that produced nothing but a chamber full of hot air and considerable grandstanding. These are perfect examples of why I've lost complete respect for all but a few politicians of any political stripe. For years at City Hall, I heard the same ridiculous excuse for why decisions were deferred or weren't made at all. “Democracy is messy,” those running the joint would say. Case Ootes, who bailed out Mel Lastman many times as his loyal deputy mayor, used that excuse in 1999 when former Tory MPP and long-time city councillor Doug Holyday first
brought up the idea of downsizing council because there were too many politicians with competing interests eating up too much time talking and doing nothing. Mr. Ootes not only told me “democracy is a messy process” but added that every politician has a “right to be heard.” For heaven's sake, did he really think we were all stupid? Let's be honest: Mr. Ootes and others didn't want to downsize council because it would put people like him out of a job. In 2003, when Mr. Holyday revisited the idea of cutting council from forty-four to twenty-two politicians – to be in sync with the provincial and federal ridings in Toronto – most of the seat-warming self-preservationists went berserk. Long-time councillor Norm Kelly – a failed real estate agent who repeatedly made it clear to all who would listen how enamoured he was with his self-professed brilliance and scholastic achievements – was most indignant with the prospect of losing his comfortable council seat. After all, he'd done so much for the taxpayer during his twenty-odd years in public office, or so he said. To Mr. Ootes's “democracy is messy” comment, Mr. Kelly added the proviso that it is also “productive.” “We do a ton of business here and it's sad that it's not appreciated,” he opined, his comments as cheesy as his delivery. “I think we've done a good job…I think pretty good policy flows from the congressional nature of this council.” His words were more than prophetic considering that his fellow councillors decided in the winter of 2013 to strip the democratically elected Mr. Ford of many of his powers, even though he was never charged criminally, and put Mr. Kelly, then deputy mayor, in charge of city business – a move previously unheard of in city politics. While Mr. Ford was absolutely not to be defended for coming undone due to his crack cocaine
and drinking issues, council proved that when it comes to him, democracy is both messy and undemocratic.

Premier Kathleen Wynne certainly didn't consider it an irony to be criticizing Mr. Ford's antics even while the OPP raided her office in search of deleted files related to the gas plant scandal, or as she continued to refuse to cough up the thousand e-mails that she herself may have written about the gas plant cancellations. She repeatedly denied she knew anything about the deliberate deletion of e-mails related to the gas plants on twenty-four computers in her own office just as she took over as premier in 2013. On the latter issue alone, Ms. Wynne proved she either didn't know – which I find hard to believe – or didn't care. Ms. Wynne outdid herself in April 2014 when she slapped a two-million-dollar defamation suit on then Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak and energy critic Lisa McLeod for daring to suggest she knew and possibly even ordered the criminal destruction of those e-mails. While her intent may have been to effect libel chill before the election, the premier showed herself to be childish and petulant. (A statement from the three parties in July 2015 said the lawsuit was “behind them,” but we don't know whether it was dropped or settled, or how much Ms. Wynne cost taxpayers to muzzle her critics.)

Still, if most politicians are weak, arrogant, and lacking in moral fibre, the predominantly liberal media do not help matters by being entirely selective about whom they choose to target. Either out of laziness or because they have a short attention span coupled with their political leanings, they go out of their way to ignore, even avoid, any sort of follow-up or fallout on the plethora of controversial scandals that have plagued the Liberal government. Mr. McGuinty was the
Teflon Premier and Ms. Wynne has followed in his footsteps. In January 2014, when I took on an investigative role at the
Sun
and readers started inundating me with story tips, I realized how easy many of my media colleagues made it for the politicians and unaccountable public organizations. I would constantly hear from my tipsters how they contacted other media and heard nothing, absolutely nothing, back. The selective coverage was blatant during the terrible pre-Christmas ice storm of 2013 in the GTA, when ten to thirty millimetres of ice fell (the amount depending on the area), leaving roads blocked, trees down, and three hundred thousand residents without power for hours and days on end, some well beyond Christmas Day. Mr. Ford and Mr. Kelly jockeyed for position as to who would call the shots – egged on by the premier, who insisted she'd only deal with Mr. Kelly. Ms. Wynne, the Photo Op Queen with an election drawing near, appeared everywhere she could be seen to look like she was doing something. I'm surprised she didn't crawl up a hydro pole so the media could get pictures of her trying to fix the ice-laden downed lines herself. Some of Toronto's councillors behaved equally reprehensibly, trying to outdo each other in the martyr department. Jaye Robinson, who represents a North Toronto ward of upwardly mobile residents, claimed in one e-mail that she'd been up until four o'clock Christmas morning calling hydro officials to demand that power be restored in her ward, as if somehow the residents there were more entitled than others. My councillor, Josh Matlow, kept reminding us that he, too, was without power for days on end.

The public saw through all of this. But the media, as usual, didn't call out any of them for engaging in shameless grandstanding and politicking instead of concerning themselves
with the needs of their constituents. They gave Ms. Wynne a free pass when she isolated Mr. Ford and criticized the democratically elected mayor for not calling a state of emergency to presumably get more help faster. A variety of emergency management experts later agreed that the situation was not life-threatening, that extra resources were already being provided to Toronto Hydro and Ontario's Hydro One, and that declaring a state of emergency would not have brought the power back on any faster. Still, that did not stop Mr. Ford's sharpest detractors on council from making political hay with the issue. But suddenly it all backfired on the chattering classes when Mr. Kelly, an award-winning teat sucker, couldn't help doing what he does best – abdicating responsibility. He slipped away to Tampa, Florida, over Christmas. It must have come as a surprise to Ms. Wynne, considering she'd indicated he was her go-to guy during the storm aftermath and cleanup. His constituents who were still without power weren't very amused either. Meanwhile, the real mayor spent day and night dealing with power outages, food shortages, and people in need over the holidays. After I exposed Mr. Kelly's little trip on Twitter, he was forced to fly back to Toronto, where he offered the media a story that he just went down to have Christmas dinner with an ailing sibling. In all my years covering this long-past-his-due-date trougher, I rarely witnessed him putting himself out for anyone but himself and his social convenor wife, Charlotte. The media never bothered to question Mr. Kelly's story or to chase down the ailing sibling. If that had been Mr. Ford, the
Toronto Star
would have sent a reporter and photographer down to Florida in a heartbeat.