[quote=Natalie Alcoba]An Ontario judge has given Toronto Mayor Rob Ford 14 days to vacate his seat.
Mr. Ford contravened the municipal conflict of interest act when he spoke and voted on a matter in which he had pecuniary interest at a city council meeting in February.
“Accordingly, I declare the seat of the respondent Robert Ford on Tronto city council, vacant,” wrote Justice Charles Hackland.
“In view of the significant mitigating circumstances surround the respondent’s actions …. I decline to impose any further disqualification from holding office beyond the current term.”
Given the impact on the City of Toronto, the judge ruled that “the operation of this declaration shall be suspended for a period of 14 days from the release of these reasons.”
[url=http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/26/rob-ford-out-as-toronto-mayor-over-conflict-of-interest-case/]National Post[/url][/quote]
"Elsewhere in Toronto, progressives were seen rioting in celebration at the news Rob Ford had been removed from office. Residents are asked to please exercise caution around the Spadina & Queen area. More on this developing story at 11."
[editline]4:00 PM[/editline]
[quote=Matt Gurney][B]Politically motivated ousting or not, Rob Ford did himself no favours[/B]
Monday after next, Rob Ford may no longer be the Mayor of Toronto.
Found guilty by an Ontario judge of conflict of interest, relating to the mayor’s decision to vote on an issue in which he had a direct financial stake (whether he had to refund roughly $3,000 in charitable donations he had improperly solicited on city letterhead), Ford may not be permitted to run again for office until 2014. Legal opinion is split on whether he could run in a byelection, if one were held to fill his office.
Ford’s suspension from office will take effect 14 days after it was handed down. That gives him time to appeal, and he has already said he will. Monday’s verdict may therefore be far from the end of this drama. It would be, as a wise man once said, merely the end of the beginning.
But whatever the ultimate outcome, it is still a stunning slap to the face of Toronto’s mayor. In the minutes after the verdict, even Ford’s allies on council sounded defeated and subdued. Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, who may soon find his title chopped in half to just “Mayor,” perhaps said it best when he told NewsTalk 1010 host Jerry Agar that while the case against Ford may have been politically motivated, Ford didn’t help his cause much.
No. He certainly didn’t. The facts of the accusation against him were clear — he did vote in a matter in which he had a financial stake. That wasn’t disputed. It was, in fact, a matter of public record. His only escape hatch was a tiny bit of wiggle room built into the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act that permits judges to avoid vacating a seat of an individual found guilty if the judge believes the conflict was inadvertent or minor.
Instead, Ford, when testifying in court, essentially said he didn’t think he was in a conflict of interest because … he didn’t think he was in a conflict of interest. Did he actually know what the definition of a conflict of interest was? He did not, the mayor conceded. Had he read the handbook that Toronto gives all its elected officials and that would have explained it all to him? Nope. Why not? Ford didn’t think he needed to learn anything more about government. His daddy had been a one-term MPP, elected when Ford was 26.
And that’s all the education any of us need in anything, right?
In his ruling ordering Ford from office, Justice Charles Hackland wrote that Ford showed a “stubborn sense of entitlement.” That’s strong stuff from a judge, but it’s completely true. Ford’s foes would call it his pigheadedness. Friends called it his bull-in-the-china-shop routine. Ford was someone entirely without pretense, and a lot of voters liked that. He was different than the rest at city council. He was out to protect the little guy, and he didn’t care who he pissed off along the way.
God knows Toronto needed some of that. There’s a reason why Ford, a candidate with a lot of very public failings, resonated with Toronto voters. They were craving someone with a little more authenticity, a willingness to get something done because it needed doing, even if it bent a few noses out of shape.
But Ford’s problem was that his, uh … let’s call it directness … wasn’t part of his political persona. It was the totality of his being. The nitty gritty details of how a city runs — including, vitally, its legal codes — didn’t interest him. He was comfortable with big themes and grand ideas, the boring little details of that thing we call “reality” be damned.
That’s why he didn’t care that there wasn’t the money to pay for the Sheppard subway. He wanted it built and the rest didn’t matter. That’s why he didn’t care about the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, and who is some uppity lawyer and an integrity commissioner to say otherwise? Stubborn sense of entitlement? Check and check.
Rob Ford has had a few victories during his two years in office. He tried to do good, and sometimes succeeded. But as it became clearer that while he knew how a city ought to be run, he had no idea how to run one, Ford became increasingly disengaged. Accusations that Ford was an absentee mayor stuck for a reason. It was like he gave up on reality and retreated as much as possible to the slogans and unrealistic boasts that he’d campaigned on.
Toronto deserves a mayor who wants the things that Rob Ford wanted. Toronto needs someone who’s not afraid of ruffle feathers. But it also needs a mayor smart enough to only pick the fights that need fighting, and to know when not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If this is the end of Ford’s time in office, and if another, more sensible right-winger succeeds him, Toronto may just get the mayor it wanted in Ford, but that he simply wasn’t able to be.
And if someone who doesn’t agree with Ford’s vision takes over, that will be Ford’s legacy. That’s a reality he may find harder to acknowledge than most.
[url=http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/26/matt-gurney-politically-motivated-ousting-or-not-rob-ford-did-himself-no-favours/]National Post[/url][/quote]
"Several columnists from the Toronto Star were reportedly taken to hospital this morning with broken wrists, allegedly from too many high-fives. Terrible, Diana. Back to you in the newsroom."
That guy was such a sack of shit that you could smell him way the hell over here on the west coast.
Took long enough.
He's an embarrassing clown.
Everywhere I see things such as "X ousted as gay by x"
but being ousted as mayor of Toronto, oh the shame must be unbearable
[QUOTE=Sir M;38601145]Everywhere I see things such as "X ousted as gay by x"
but being ousted as mayor of Toronto, oh the shame must be unbearable[/QUOTE]
Are you getting ousted and outed mixed up
Or is that the joke?
I'm confused
So what exactly did he do?
[QUOTE=Aman VII;38601466]So what exactly did he do?[/QUOTE]
He was a straight-out douche to everyone around him, even his neighbors.
I recall a few months ago a particular incident where a friend complained about the quality of the road in front of his restaurant or something and as if by magic, the road was repaired within days as opposed to the average weeks it takes for road problems to be repaired in.
[QUOTE=Aman VII;38601466]So what exactly did he do?[/QUOTE]
To get ousted?
As far as I know, what happened was that when council discusses budget and legislation and such, those members that would more directly benefit from the outcome of such talks are asked to abstain from voting. Conflict of Interest, as it's called. What Rob Ford did was not only vote, but spoke at large to council on an issue that was very much in his interests, persuading council to basically benefit him financially.
This broke laws, and he got fired, pretty much
derp nevermind
Thank fuck, that asshole's going to be gone. I ran into him in the west end once - his presence was like that of a large, walking, sweaty human ballsack.
I disagree completely with the judge's decision, but I expect to stand fairly alone on this here due to the amount of hatred people seem to have towards him making them not care if the decision was reasonable or not. I also think much of the hatred is incredibly overblown, he's not some huge asshole like everyone seems to make him out to be, and he doesn't deserve to be kicked out for trying to help the football team he coaches. This whole suit is fairly blatantly politically motivated, rather than out of any real concern over the money or any true concerns over conflict of interest. Nobody abused Miller in either the media or the courts the way they have Ford, and he was a wasteful idiot.
As I said in the Canadian thread, I hope we don't end up with a millerite spendthrift/tax-happy and irrationally anti-car mayor like Olivia Chow, or an even bigger idiot than Ford, because I will admit Ford has shortcomings, like Adam Vaughan. Especially Adam Vaughan.
what exactly has this guy done to make people dislike him
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;38602286]what exactly has this guy done to make people dislike him[/QUOTE]
Other than being a Conservative in a largely Liberal/NDP city, which I believe is the main motivating factor, he's failed to gain support of council, said that the city could do well with more Chinese immigrants because they "work like dogs," tried to say that Chicago and Toronto are on the same great lake, eliminated a bike lane on Jarvis St., and downtown bicyclists are militant about their largely unused bike lanes, he chased a newspaper reporter out from behind his house after they went snooping around near his property, when he already has an issue with this paper from before, he called the cops on comedians from CBC trying to arrange a mock-interview with him in his driveway, privatized the expensive and prone to striking city garbage collection, as well as made the TTC a "mandatory service," meaning they can't strike beyond running at 75% capacity, which believe it or not would be an improvement on their service, showcasing an "anti-union" mentality that city council doesn't like because the last mayor bent over backwards for unions, and he's been picked on for being fat.
[QUOTE=DaCommie1;38602380]and he's been picked on for being fat.[/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86RbO3kbHWM[/media]
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;38602286]what exactly has this guy done to make people dislike him[/QUOTE]
Broke the law several times.
[QUOTE=DaCommie1;38602380]Other than being a Conservative in a largely Liberal/NDP city, which I believe is the main motivating factor, he's failed to gain support of council, said that the city could do well with more Chinese immigrants because they "work like dogs," tried to say that Chicago and Toronto are on the same great lake, eliminated a bike lane on Jarvis St., and downtown bicyclists are militant about their largely unused bike lanes, he chased a newspaper reporter out from behind his house after they went snooping around near his property, when he already has an issue with this paper from before, he called the cops on comedians from CBC trying to arrange a mock-interview with him in his driveway, privatized the expensive and prone to striking city garbage collection, as well as made the TTC a "mandatory service," meaning they can't strike beyond running at 75% capacity, which believe it or not would be an improvement on their service, showcasing an "anti-union" mentality that city council doesn't like because the last mayor bent over backwards for unions, and he's been picked on for being fat.[/QUOTE]
I honestly couldn't agree more. No matter how big of a tool Ford is/was, his trial-by-media and the court decision is definitely politically motivated. I knew mayors could be removed from office, but I didn't realize the courts could do that. I figured it had to be the Premier or someone from Provincial Cabinet.
Who knows, maybe the mayor of London Ont. (the shitty one, with the shitty Thames - anyone from Southern Ontario don't even deny this) could be next after this. And while there at it, cut Jim Watson for the bus cuts in Ottawa as well.
This is simply beautiful. First McGuinty resigns and now Ford is out of office. What next? Raining marshmallows?
[sub][sub]#WishfulThinking[/sub][/sub]
[QUOTE=DaCommie1;38602134]he's not some huge asshole like everyone seems to make him out to be[/QUOTE] I disagree.
[video=youtube;tgJ8oVsp6bo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgJ8oVsp6bo&feature=share&list=PL_fsWcHamdN3dF9fxgqSm2a7kaZz623oq[/video]
See ya later, you fat fuck.
the fuckin guy went to court cause he was using taxpayer money to fund his private football team...
jesus guys
[QUOTE=PassTheBong;38607181]the fuckin guy went to court cause he was using taxpayer money to fund his private football team...
jesus guys[/QUOTE]
Actually, he went to court because he voted on a motion about whether or not he should pay back money the city gave to his football team, approximately $3000. He was not going to court because he was "funding a football team with taxpayer money," which he actually wasn't. He got kicked out of office over $3000. Hazel McCallion of Mississauga has gotten away with being in conflict of interest over voting for a land purchase that benefited her directly in 1982, somehow "Hurricane" Hazel can get away with being in conflict of interest over land, obviously worth several tens of thousands, but Ford gets kicked out for trying to help a high school football team with $3000. Not to mention McCallion is up again for CoI, over voting on a bylaw that would have helped her son's company save $11 million. However, unlike Ford's case which popped up immediately, the case against McCallion is over something she did in 2007, and only appeared after she announced she was retiring next election anyways.
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