Mayor Rob Ford’s bombast and bluster aside,Toronto’s electors should pay heed to the effort to put him down. No replacement mayor will ever be safe if it is too easy to dispense with a sitting mayor. It will become open season on mayors and councillors who fail to meet a constantly moving set of standards.
Rob Ford’s only mistake in this rumble was to defend himself. It was a natural, knee-jerk thing to do. And, you have to admit, Rob Ford is a knee-jerk kind of guy.
Not that we condone any flimflam from politicians but you have to wonder if the $3150 of donations to Ford’s football foundation involved in this situation are enough to justify the destruction of a career. Not, we quickly stipulate, that he should screw around with the ethics commissioner or deal with issues on council where he has a conflict of interest. He deserves a firm reprimand, a large fine if you wish, a few days in jail maybe, but not his job. The job is a matter to be left to the voters.
There will certainly be a lot of high-flying rhetoric in the courtroom but the key to the case is Mayor Ford’s intent. Sure he ignored the city’s integrity commissioner. He also ignored the Gay Pride Parade people. He will tell anyone who asks that being the mayor of a big city is a big job and he has no time for these annoyances.
Clayton Ruby, lawyer for the complainant, Paul Magder (not the furrier), is going to argue that Rob Ford should neither have argued in his own defence nor have voted on the issue. The judge should listen to this argument very carefully. There is a principal in this somewhere! It probably has to do with the right to defend oneself.
Mind you, Ford has finally smartened up on that. He has hired a lawyer. This is a fairly expensive lawyer and that means somebody convinced Rob Ford to take the matter seriously. It is the same lawyer who kept former mayor Mel Lastman out of trouble back when Lastman was mayor. Back then, it was the MFP Computer leasing fiasco and the overrun of unapproved costs of over $40 million. Compared to $3150, that inquiry had meat to it.
Clayton Ruby claims that his action is not because he is left of centre politically and Rob Ford is further right than Rob’s friend Stephen Harper. It is because he does not think Rob Ford’s approach to governance is in the public interest. If Ruby’s claim gets Ford dumped, we have a long list of politicians for Ruby to turf from office.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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