Sometimes it’s the little details that reveal so much, especially when they’re captured on Television.
Former Toronto Councillor Doug Ford made an important appearance at City Hall this afternoon. He was there to officially enter the race for Mayor. Why? Because his embattled brother Rob, the current Mayor, suffered a serious setback earlier this week. After privately experiencing persistent abdominal pain for three months, things took a turn for the worst and he was hospitalized. The early diagnosis is a tumour. The official prognosis is expected early next week.
Shortly after Doug left City Hall, the Mayor released a written statement saying that he is physically unable to continue his reelection campaign, a campaign that saw him trailing early frontrunner & former Conservative ally John Tory by more than ten points in the polls. Doug is replacing him on the ballot. Today was the deadline for last-minute election sign-ups & withdrawals.
In the midst of the circus that surrounded him at City Hall, one cameraman caught a rare moment of vulnerability. Shooting him up close from the left, one drop of sweat slowly trickled down Doug’s cheek.
He should be sweating because the Ford Legacy is in serious jeopardy. Scandal-plagued and globally derided, Rob Ford was never guaranteed a second term running Canada’s largest city. How could he have possibly won anyway considering all the crack videos, the drunk videos, the racism, the sexism, the drunk driving, the physical assaults, the sexual harassment, the threats of violence, the constant lying and multiple political conflicts of interest that have defined him these past two years alone?
With only six weeks to go until Toronto elects its next municipal government, Doug Ford, the obnoxious, ignorant, careless, and deeply polarizing Councillor with his own conflicts of interest and drug dealing past, is now stepping in to try to rescue his brother’s administration. Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, there’s the puzzling matter of Rob Ford’s political future. He is withdrawing from the race for Mayor but he’s not out of the election altogether. Originally, it was his nephew, Michael Ford, who was running to fill his old Councillor seat in Ward 2’s Etobicoke North riding. Now that Doug is running for Mayor, Rob is replacing Michael as a Conservative candidate in that race.
An innocent question: if a man is too seriously ill to run for one political office, how is he healthy enough to run for another? Granted, running for Mayor is obviously more physically demanding than vying for a lower profile City Councillor gig, but still, if your stomach pains are so bad to the point where you need constant professional care and lots of rest & relaxation, why are you running for anything?
The likely answer: because there’s a good chance he might actually win. For all the city-wide support he’s lost in the last year and a half, there are a considerable number of Etobicoke residents who still believe his now discredited populist “taxpayer protector” rhetoric that got him on City Council in the first place. Rob Ford is counting on that decade-plus connection with those remarkably loyal & forgiving voters to keep him on Council without having to do too much door-to-door campaigning.
Unfortunately, this is a gamble and it depends greatly on next week’s test results. If that mass on his abdomen is cancerous (and let’s all hope it’s not), this sneaky back-up plan to get reelected, this time as a City Councillor, will have to be abandoned. Even if it’s like the earlier mass he had in 2009 (which turned out to be benign), he’ll still have to have surgery and may need plenty of time to rest & recover. As of this moment, he has few good political options.
CBC News Network’s Carole MacNeil asked a number of guests about the possibility of Doug potentially winning the election, Rob winning back his seat, Doug making him the Deputy Mayor and then at some point, stepping aside to let Rob become the Mayor again. Not one thought this was a plausible scenario, not just because of the unlikeliness of both being elected, but because of the absurd idea that the ambitious Doug (who has expressed a desire to lead the Ontario Tories) would ever relinquish power to his younger brother, especially when you consider his many health problems.
Regardless of the end result of Rob Ford’s medical situation, whether it’s manageable or not (and again let’s hope it is a solvable problem), it’s the end of a turbulent era in Toronto politics. Doug Ford has an impossible task ahead of himself. He has to run on his brother’s highly questionable record as well as his own, somehow make up a lot of ground between himself & John Tory while still watching out for the formidable Olivia Chow, and avoid getting swallowed up by all the scandals that have already plagued his entire family, all in just a month and a half.
He should be sweating.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, September 12, 2014
6:15 p.m.
UPDATE & CLARIFICATION: Dr. Zane Cohen announced during a press conference that the Mayor has a rare form of cancer, a “malignant liposarcoma” in his stomach that has spread to another part of his body. He will be undergoing on-again/off-again chemotherapy, a process that will take several weeks. Despite the difficult days ahead, Dr. Cohen says he is “optimistic” but did not promise a full recovery. As of this writing, it is not certain if Rob Ford will discontinue his campaign to win his old Ward 2 seat in Etobicoke North. Also not clear is what Doug Ford will do with his own yet-to-be-kicked-off campaign for Mayor. (Since announcing, he has kept a low profile.)
During the press conference, Dr. Cohen noted that the Mayor did not actually have a tumour in 2009. He actually had appendicitis.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
6:14 p.m.
CORRECTION: In paragraph 6, I wrote that Doug Ford was a “deeply polarizing former Councillor”. Actually, despite not running for re-election in his Ward, until December 1st when the newly elected City Council is sworn in for the first time, he is still very much an active Councillor. That’s why “former” has been removed from the text. My apologies for the mistake.
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
8:12 p.m.
UPDATE 2: Judging by an audio message he recently released, Rob Ford has no intention of staying silent during Toronto’s current election campaign. While thanking his fellow citizens for their outpouring of support as he prepares for his first round of chemotherapy, he also urged them to support Doug for Mayor. The outgoing City Councillor is expected to finally start campaigning for the city’s top job shortly. Meanwhile, the current Mayor is pushing forward with his own campaign for his old Ward 2 seat, despite sounding hoarse in his message and remaining in hospital. The question is, if he wins on October 27, will he be healthy enough to be sworn in on December 1?
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, September 18, 2014
8:19 p.m.
THE WRITINGS OF DENNIS EARL 
Waves Of Dissent
You continue to expand this heartless campaign
In an already demoralized desert terrain
You claim the solution is to maintain the course
Because they only understand excessive brute force
But what you fail to see is the madness of war
And how it’s escalating beyond what it ever was before
It’s neither possible to bomb them into submission
Nor break them with torture…I’m sorry, “rendition”
People get pissed when you murder their loves
So stop being surprised when they take off the gloves
The only lesson they’re learning is “violence is the answer”
They weren’t the ones who invented this cancer
It’s laughable to see you act so noble
When the violence you’re unleashing is growing more global
Your murderous plan will not make a dent
And their numbers will keep rising through waves of dissent
This is what happens when you fuck around in places
That seduce you to embark on wild goose chases
Unfamiliar with the culture and the people who preserve it
The impeachment that’s coming? You certainly deserve it
Gone are the days when you had widespread support
It wasn’t so wise to find millions to deport
But Sophia Bush still loves you, this much is clear
How much longer before you need a new career?
The cure isn’t murder, how can it be?
Unrelenting violence only causes more misery
They’ll never stop fighting for their own sovereignty
When the alternative involves your dictators and crushing poverty
Yes, they are ruthless and not exactly kind
But neither are you, which I suspect is by design
This cycle of death will go on unabated
Unless reason chokes fear until it is asphyxiated
Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
6:36 p.m.
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on September 24, 2014 at 6:36 pm Comments (1)