Robyn Doolittle talks Rob Ford and Crazy Town

Toronto Star reporter Robyn Doolittle discussed her new book Crazy Town -- about the drama surrounding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, the investigation that led his belated admission to having used crack cocaine (once, probably during one of his drunken stupours) and how the Ford phenomenon  cane to be -- with Twitter Canada managing director Kristen Stewart at the Bloor Docs Cinema in Toronto on Monday evening.

I attended, and came home with my own copy of the book. I got a few chapters in on the subway and its a fascinating read so far, with a lot of interesting revelations about Doug Ford Sr. already that were news to me. And just the timeline at the front of the book is something. We all lived through the events, but to see it all listed there on the page -- the racist comments at city council, the drunken profanity at the Leafs game, the Florida arrest, the Garrison Ball, the crack video -- it staggers the mind to see it all in one place.

I last heard Doolittle speak in September on a Star panel on city hall at the Word on the Street event. At the time, they seemed pessimistic the proof would come out, and suspected the video had been located and destroyed. It's been quite the turnaround since then.

Below are my live tweets of the night's event, along with some tweets and pics from others that caught my eye. Doolittle and all the team at the Toronto Star have been very courageous and tenacious in their coverage, which is definitely far from finished. They deserve our support for still practising good, old-fashoned journalism. Crazy Town is an excellent read so far, but I suspect the last chapter on the Fords won't be written for some time yet.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Ontario's NDP lines up behind Toronto Mayor Rob Ford

Here's an example of some pretty cynical political pandering from Ontario's NDP, as it decides to sidle up to Toronto's crack-smoking mayor Rob Ford in a misguided attempt to score political points.

Back in November, when there was discussion about whether the province should intervene in the drama surrounding Ford and Toronto's city council, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath rightly said it should be up to the council to decide how it wanted to proceed.

"At this point, I think it's really important to maintain a position of respect for that council. They were elected by their local community, the mayor and city councillors. This is something that they have responsibility for, and I respect their role," she said.

And council acted, deciding to strip Ford of the bulk of his powers and hand the running of the city over to deputy mayor Norm Kelly, leaving Ford with just ceremonial duties and interviews with U.S. sports radio stations.

Fast-forward to this week. Ford wants a meeting with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to discuss provincial help for the city dealing with the aftermath of the holiday ice storm. Wynne says, in accordance with the wishes of Toronto's city council, she'll meet with Kelly, but not Ford.

Re-enter the NDP's Horwath, with these comments today:

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said that even if city council has stripped Ford of many of his mayoral powers, the polite thing to do would be to take the meeting.

“I was raised in a family that common courtesy was an important value and so I think the common courtesy of a response to a mayor’s request for a meeting is something that’s pretty easy to fulfil,” she said.

I disagree with Horwath here. Toronto city council has been clear -- Norm Kelly is running the city, because Ford has become a distracting embarrassment. Kelly is the person Wynne should deal with.

Hmm, how should I put it?

"I think it's really important to maintain a position of respect for that council. They were elected by their local community, the mayor and city councillors. This is something that they have responsibility for, and I respect their role."

Exactly, Ms. Horwath from two months ago. Exactly.

Its patently obvious that Rob Ford is out to score political points by either getting a meeting with the Premier to show he's still running things, despite the clearly expressed wishes of council, or playing the victim if she respects the wishes of council. This is about his re-election campaign.

Ford has enough enablers. Horwath shouldn't be one of them. Yet she is, just to take a shot at Premier Wynne.

From someone who seeks to be Premier herself, it's a pretty poor example of leadership.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Reaction to Rob Ford at Argos game more carnival freak show than show of support

There I was, minding my own business just after halftime in a section 129 aisle seat at the Rogers Centre as the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tigercats clashed on Sunday in the CFL’s Eastern Division final, when I ended up with a ringside seat for the circus that has enveloped the City of Toronto. Yes, I came face to face with Rob Ford.

He was right beside me as I recognized the cause of the commotion, his hand thrust out at me. I shook it out of instinct and my deeply-bred Canadian politeness, still somewhat in shock and not thinking clearly. As he moved on, an aide put a gold-embossed business card and an infamous “Ford for Mayor” fridge magnet into my hand and the circus continued down the aisle. He was mobbed as he moved to his seats about 5 rows in front of me, around the 10 yard line. My first thought? You’d think he’d have better seats.

The circus show quickly overshadowed the game, as people crowded down to touch Ford’s cape (actually he wore the infamous Mayor Ford Argos jersey), offer high-fives and pose for photos. Our section was quickly invaded with everyone standing watching Ford, making watching the game near impossible. A Hamilton touchdown shortly after his arrival passed with scant notice from our section. In fact, the Argos would go scoreless after Ford’s arrival, losing their half time lead, as the Ticats punched their ticket to the Grey Cup.

Media also descended on our aisle from the press box to document the madness, and security moved in to try to move people back to their seats and ticketed sections as fans, particularly Hamilton fans, grew increasingly irate at their inability to watch a pretty good football game. Toronto Police removed a few fans who got abusive with a security guard, but otherwise they managed to settle things down. Ford would leave with under two minutes left, and the Argos still making an ultimately fruitless last-chance drive.

To answer the obvious questions: I did not see him consume any beverages or eat anything (make your own joke on the last one) and I didn’t witness any booing or negative comments. Everyone either wanted a picture or a high five, or just wanted to watch the damned football game.

I bet Ford, other than being disappointed with the Argos loss, left the game feeling pretty good about himself, and like he had a lot of support. And that would be a mistake. While there were undoubtedly some Ford Nation diehards present, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case for most.

For most, it was a carnival, a circus freakshow with Ford as the main attraction. Like many pseudo celebrities, he’s become famous not for his accomplishments, but for his misdeeds. He’s an ongoing train wreck we see nightly on our televisions. It’s our own reality show, and it has gone global. Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, Anderson Cooper 360 – it’s that crack guy they’re mocking on TV, let’s get a photo with him and Facebook it, will be hilarious.

I tweeted the other day that I never knew the Alateen meetings my parents made me attend as a teen would later give me such insight into municipal politics. I wrote about Mayor Ford a few months ago. We didn’t know the crack allegations were true then, but we knew enough. At the very least, we know the man is an alcoholic. He’s an addict, and he needs help. He needs to come to that realization on his own and he clearly hasn’t yet. The apologies offered are far from genuine – they have all the hallmarks of political calculation. And he seems to be surrounded by enablers unwilling to be truthful with him – anyone who would has been chased away.

Mayor Ford needs to hit rock bottom, before he can acknowledge his problems and truly begin to work them. He’s not there yet, and I worry, with all that has happened already, what rock bottom for him will look like. But I hope he gets there soon; for his own sake, and for the city’s.

Until it does, the circus will continue. And to the degree it ever was funny, it’s becoming less so every day. Now, it’s just sad.

What football game? All eyes on Rob Ford.

The media, including this CP reporter, invade the aisle to document the madness.

This fan did not make friends with Rogers Centre security trying to keep the section free of lookey-loos.

Toronto Police escort fans from the game.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Talking Rob Ford and Toronto Politics at Word on the Street

Continuing my run of political Sundays, I spent the afternoon yesterday in the shadow of Queen's Park in downtown Toronto, where a number of panels and discussions at the Word on the Street took on a political theme.

Up first was the Toronto Star tent, where the city's paper of record gathered some of its political reporters to talk about their respective beats. And opening things up was "Mayor Rob Ford and the Year at City Hall" with city editor Irene Gentle, columnist David Rider and reporter Robyn Doolitte.

As you'd expect, given the character that is our Mayor and what some would term the Star's obsession (others would say its job) with documenting his activities (he refuses to talk to the Star, so the feelings are mutual), the Mayor was a frequent topic during the panel. It wasn't all a Ford fest though; development, transit, and other more substantive issues also made the cut.

The panel wasn't as negative on Ford as you may think; they even, tounge in cheek, endorsed his re-election -- they say he sells newspapers and is saving journalism. But more seriously, they praised his skills as a politician, and said he has a very good chance at re-election. They would like him to talk to the press more, and not play favourites.

The infamous video alleged to show crack smoking also got much discussion. They said they walked about buying it and did negotiate, but they were concerned about the price and, more importantly, where the money would go. Would their money be putting more guns on the street? They think the video will probably eventually come out, and implied there's more to the story they're not able to report yet. They did shoot-down two video-related rumours: they don't believe a Toronto lawyer for one of the accused has it, and they don't believe the police (allegedly through Project Traveler) have it either.

Below are a selection of live tweets from the panel, and a few pictures as well.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Rob Ford needs to seek help himself

For those whose families have been touched by alcoholism, as mine has, the story in this morning’s Toronto Star “Rob Ford: ‘Intoxicated’Toronto mayor asked to leave military ball” will ring familiar.

Looking back at a long pattern of behavior it would seem obvious to all that Mayor Ford may have a problem. Obvious to everyone, that is, but Mayor Ford. Based on the article, it would certainly seem that it’s obvious to those close to him, who have been urging him to seek help. It’s also implied that some of those close to him that are speaking out, albeit anonymously, are doing so with the hope it will finally spur him into seeking help.

As anyone with any experience with this disease can tell you though, the realization and admission that you have a problem is something the person has to come to on their own. Until they’re ready to take that first step, there’s nothing you can do to spur them toward it. Realizing that is the first step toward maintaining your own sanity.

The only thing, and the best thing, that those around someone in this situation can do is to not be an enabler. Don’t make excuses for their behavior, don’t cover it up, don’t live in denial – it will only prolong their denial, and drag you into their illness as well, and the pain and damage it creates. And in the long run, you’re not doing them any favours.

Not that politics should enter into this, but I think most Torontonians would understand and respect a genuine  admission, and decision to seek help. And I know I would look dimly on those who would seek to profit politically from someone's addiction, particularly one that so many Canadians, and their loved ones, are suffering with.

I didn't vote for Rob Ford in the last election and if he runs again, I’ll vote for someone else. That’s solely based on his policy and decisions as mayor, with which I fundamentally disagree. But as someone who has seen first hand the damage that alcoholism does to families, I hope he admits that he has a problem, and that he seeks the help he needs. Both for himself, and for his family.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

We're the Rob Ford campaign team and we're super-awesome geniuses

A number of rather interesting stories have been percolating out of the Rob Ford campaign team since they successfully steamrolled their man into the Toronto Mayor's office a few weeks ago. They're to do with the strategies and tactics that helped turn a right-wing councilor who few gave a chance to win in Canada's most liberal city into a political end the gravy train movement.

I'm certainly very interested in their strategy around messaging and communications. Their message discipline and definition of narrative was admirable, and as a political communications junkie I think there are lessons to be learned from the Ford campaign.

But some of the revelations and tactics that his campaign team are putting out there and freely discussing? Well, they'd be better left undisclosed.

We've already had lots of coverage of the fake Smitherman-supporter Twitter account that the Ford campaign created to (successfully) obtain an audio recording that was potentially damaging to Ford, as well as try to subtly influence the online discussion:

Rob Ford's campaign team created a fake Twitter account and wrote more than 150 messages under the guise of being a George Smitherman supporter during the Toronto mayoral campaign.

The news came to light this week in and extensive profile by The Globe and Mail that a deputy communications director set up the fake account to flush out a potentially damaging audio tape.

Fraser Macdonald, 24, created a fake profile for a fictional woman named Karen Philby.

Through the account, the user appealed to a man who had an audio tape of Rob Ford seemingly promising to buy him OxyContin off the street, in order to do damage control.

But Philby's profile remained active, smearing mayoral candidates throughout the campaign, including Smitherman and Ford, all while posing as a Smitherman supporter.

For the full details on the Twitter initiative, read the features from the Globe and from Macleans, and Torontoist has the full stream.

And today we have another revelation from the Ford dirty tricks team:

The Rob Ford campaign had one of its members anonymously call John Tory’s radio show and berate him about his integrity as part of a successful strategy to keep Tory out of Toronto’s mayoral race.

Nick Kouvalis, Ford’s deputy campaign manager and now the mayor-elect’s chief of staff, told a forum Friday morning that his success in preventing Tory from reconsidering his decision not to run “was a huge victory for Rob, so he took John out and Rob won because of it.”

Now, I'm not going to pretend for a moment that these were unique situations. Sneaky, underhanded, even morally unquestionable tactics are hardly unheard of in the annals of political campaigning. So these revelations aren't unique in that regard.

No, what's unique is that they're talking about them. Nay, boasting about them. These stories aren't being leaked, or unearthed by investigative journalists. Senior members of the Ford campaign team members are openly boasting of their dirty tricks successes.

Such stories aren't unique. But boasting about them certainly is. It's rather astounding, frankly, to see these backroom boys out there boasting about their awesomeness. I'm sure it feels great for them to feed their egos and see stories about their awesomeness, but that's just not how this business is supposed to work. They call it the backroom for a reason.

And they're doing their candidate, the soon to be mayor, a disservice. Ford's job now, and it's going to be a big one, is to try to bring the city and a divided council together to get support to pass his agenda, and address the not insignificant issues facing the City of Toronto. He needs to grow the tent. These sorts of stories don't help. John Tory is reportedly interested in taking a role at city hall to help Ford. I wonder how he'll react to these revelations?

These guys have forgotten that it's not about the staffers. It's about the candidate. People don't want to see how the sausage is made. And, frankly, no one cares about process stories anyway. There's only downside here.

The truly awesome don't need to brag about their awesomeness. They let the results speak for themselves.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Thoughts on messaging, from Rob Ford to fighter jets

I've been doing some thinking lately on messaging. How you need to have a simple message for it to resonate. How the complex issues governments at every level have to deal with can’t be distilled into sound bites. How so many of us don’t have time for the details. And what that means for political discourse.

Two recent developments triggered these thoughts for me: the election of Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto, and the evolving Liberal messaging on the F-35 and fighter jets.

Say what you will about Rob Ford – certainly, many have. Personally, I think he’s a lot smarter than he’s given credit for, although I disagree with him on just about everything. I can, though, admire his message discipline. He had a simple, clear, and compelling message – cut waste, end the gravy train – and he repeated it ad nauseum, never veering. It’s a message that resonates. After all, who favours waste?

Now, if you look past the soundbites to Ford’s platforms, there are serious issues. For example, the amount of spending he has in his sites is a fraction of the city budget. Big financial holes remain in his budget. The deeper, systemic issues facing the city go largely unaddressed.

We do need to address those deeper issues, but by and large the average voter doesn’t have the time or attention span for those debates. So a simple, compelling message, even if it’s hollow, still rings true.

Take the F-35 fighter jet purchase at the federal level. The government has shown no interest in having an honest debate on the issue. What is the military role we expect fighters to fill for the next 50 years, what are the threats, why is this the best jet? These questions go unanswered. Instead we get support the military rhetoric, and distortions and/or outright lies about the process and decisions taken by the previous government.

The Conservatives have opted to distill it to a simple message: this is the best jet, we support the troops, anything else will cost jobs. The first is unproven, the second debatable and the third untrue, but it’s a simple, clear message.

The Liberals initially tried for a more nuanced message: instead of an untendered F-35 purchase we should have an open, public competitive tender process to determine the best jet to meet our needs and ensure guarantees of work for Canadian business, and a debate over just what those needs should be. I think that’s the right policy, but it’s a 10 minute conversation that people just don’t have time for.

Now, instead, the Liberals have opted for a simple, clear message: we will cancel the F-35 purchase. Now that’s a simple, clear, understandable message. They’re setting it up as a black and white choice that everyone can understand, and that they believe will resonate: fighter jets and prisons or schools and health care.

Of course, it’s not really that simple. There’s actually no F-35 purchase to cancel, because no purchase contract has signed. And a Liberal government would still purchase fighters, and possibly even the F-35. They’d just do it through a competitive tender process. And the feds don't build schools anyways.

But again, by and large people don’t have time to have that wider discussion, particularly if the government has no intent in engaging in it. So it seems the Liberals have decided, rather than cede the field to the government, it’s better to meet their simple but flawed message with our simple but flawed message.

There are hardly unique examples. Our political discourse is increasingly dominated by simplistic arguments and messaging that aren’t afraid of ignoring the facts to send a message. Look at the Green Shift. The right policy, but it was sold poorly – you needed a 10-minute conversation to understand why. The arguments against it – it’s a permanent tax on everything – fell apart under scrutiny, but in the absence of time for that scrutiny a simple, compelling argument wins.

What we’re seeing is a dumbing-down of our political discourse by all involved. Rather than treat us like adults by having rational, reasoned, well-argued debates of issues on the merits, we get focus-grouped sound bites.

Frankly, I’m not sure I blame them too much. They’re only trying to get their message heard, and appeal to us on our own terms. You want to do the right thing, but you need to get elected before you can do it.

The responsibility lies with the voter, the citizen, to get engaged, to look beyond the sound bites and simple messaging by researching the issues and the positions. We’ll only get better if we demand it. But as long as we reward the simplistic, that’s what we get.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Casting call for a stop Ford movement: which also-ran sucks slightly less?

The latest Nanos poll of the Toronto Mayoral race showing a 24-point lead for right-wing candidate Rob Ford has certainly made waves far outside of the elite centre of the universe.

Rob Ford: 34.4 per cent

George Smitherman: 16.0 per cent

Joe Pantalone 12.6 per cent

Rocco Rossi: 7.2 per cent

Sarah Thomson: 4.6 per cent

Undecided: 25.0 per cent

(Phone survey of 1,021 likely voters Sept. 14-16. MOE +/- 3.1 per cent)

The break-out PDF from Nanos is very interesting reading. While Ford has an impressive 50 per cent of the vote in his homebase of Etobicoke, he's no suburban phenomenon. In fact, he leads the field in every region in the city, including a five-point lead on Smitherman in the Toronto core. He leads with both men and women. In every age category. With home owners and renters. It's an impressive and very through domination by Ford.

Rob Silver has a column that offers some very credible explanations for the Ford phenomenon, which I largely agree with. I'd add to the list Miller-backlash, and one more: the utter failure of George Smitherman, Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi and Sarah Thomson to wage professional, credible, organized campaigns that speak to the concerns and needs of the electorate.

This is backed-up by what, for me, was the most interesting part of the Nanos poll: the break-down by party support.

Ford has 52.2 per cent of Conservative voters, that's not surprising. Interestingly, despite Rossi and Smitherman's awkward lurches to the right, Joe Pantalone (the Jack Layton-endorsed Miller deputy) is second in Conservative support at 12.5 per cent, followed by Smitherman at 7.1 and Rossi at 6.7 per cent. So yeah, that tactic paid-off well. NDP voters are split between Ford and Pantalone (but this sample is very small).

The Liberal supporter numbers are interesting. Smitherman has a bare lead over Ford amongst Liberal supporters, 27.6 per cent to 26.2 per cent. That's embarrassing for a high-profile former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister. Also embarrassing is Rossi, briefly federal Liberal executive director, at just 7.3 per cent. And a whopping 24.3 per cent of Liberals are still undecided.

That undecided tally mirrors the over undecided total of 25.0 per cent. With a 24 point lead, this is Ford's election to lose. For him to not be elected mayor would require a campaign implosion, and probably a shrinking of the field. And most of those undecideds would have to break one-way, coalescing behind a stop-Ford movement that shows no signs of forming. One has to ask which of the similarly unimpressive candidates it could form behind? How could one candidate credibly say to another "you should drop out because I suck slightly less than you?"

I think many of those undecideds are like me: certainly not going to vote for Ford, but disappointed by all of the other candidates and still hoping, increasingly in vain, that one of the other candidates will do something to impress me. And no, tunnels, money-back guarantees and boccie-balls aren't going to do it.

In the end, barring a game-changer, people like me will either stay home on election day, or hold our noses and vote for the marginally less incompetent alternative. And that's how a guy who drove while intoxicated, lied about a drunken fight at a Leafs game, and has made off-colour remarks about Asians, homosexuals and city cyclists becomes Mayor of Toronto.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Finding it hard to get excited about Toronto’s mayoralty race

I’ve lived in Toronto for five years now after moving out from British Columbia for a journalism job, and I’m finally starting to feel at home. I still hate the Maple Leafs, but I no longer look away from the CN Tower in an effort to fool myself into thinking I’m not really in Hogtown. I even read the Toronto Star every now and again.

Still, I’m finding it hard to work-up the energy or interest to get excited about our race for mayor or to get engaged by any of the candidates. It’s not that I don’t care about any local issues – transit is my big one – but all the candidates thus far have struck me as either crazy, timid or panderers. It’s hard to be excited about any of them in the mayor’s office, and at this point I still have no idea who I’ll mark an X for in October.

I can safely cross Rob Ford off the list, for reasons so manifold and obvious I shan’t bother to list them. As much as some of his populist pap may strike a chord that is resonating in the polls though, I think his numbers have as much to do with the unimpressive performance of his opponents.

The two obvious choices for me to support based on my political leanings would be George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi. Sadly, I haven’t been much impressed with either of them.

I met Rocco a few times when he was briefly executive director of the federal Liberal Party. He seemed like an accomplished fellow, bursting with energy and ideas. I was pleased when he entered the race, even if he was leaving unfinished business back in Ottawa. But then he started making announcements.

I’ll give Rocco credit for one thing. While Smitherman has been too timid to say muchof substance as the (in his mind) frontrunner, as the scrappy challenger Rossi has been putting plenty of stuff out there. The problem is, I don’t really like any of it. He seemed to hew right so sharply when he launched I found myself wondering if it was really the Liberal Party he was formerly executive directing.

He supports empty populist pap that echoes the Reform Party of old and sounds nice but will do nothing to confront the issues facing Toronto, like cutting the Mayor’s pay or implementing recall legislation. Selling-off Toronto Hydro, besides getting rid of a valuable asset, just temporarily papers-over deeper budget issues. I can get behind putting garbage services to tender. But he loses me on the issue that matters to me most: transit.

First he wanted to freeze Transit City, a plan already funded and in the works that would see LRT lines soon crisscross the city, in favour of studying other options. We need more transit now, this plan is ready to go, and preferring an imperfect plan to more delay I opposed this. Now he wants to take the money from selling Toronto Hydro and put it toward expanding the subway. Subway is better than LRT, but a few problems. First, I don’t support selling off assets to do it. Two, subway is a lot more expensive than LRT, which means less of it, which means many areas will wait much longer for service improvements. Third, he assumes the other levels of government that have committed funding to Transit City will allow it to be ported over to this new plan. That’s a large assumption.

Still, while I don’t agree with most of them, Rossi is at least out there talking policy. Which is more than I can say for Smitherman. As someone who hasn’t followed the race super-close, the impression I have of George is that he seems very reluctant to take firm positions, sometimes gets angry, and went for a long walk down Eglington. So I went to a Web site and, while he offers a little more substance there, traffic wardens and service review don’t exactly set hearts a’flutter. And on transit, he seems to want to do LRT and subway but I don’t see how he’ll pay for it.

Then, there are a handful of other candidates. Apparently someone named Joe Pantalone is running; I know this only because Jack Layton just endorsed him (Jack appears no less than thrice on the front page of his Web site). There’s also a Sarah Thompson who may or may not be slightly conservative and has no political experience. And there was some guy that wanted to build a casino or something but I think he dropped out.

There are our choices for mayor in Canada’s largest city. Any race where people were excited about the prospect of John Tory's potential entry has problems. Maybe I should start averting my gaze from the CN Tower once more. Will any of the candidates step up and impress?

If voters like me are so uninspired we don't bother to vote, that's how Rob Ford wins. But just being the "not crazy alternative" won't cut it either.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers