Too Far Gone

Another Friday, another less than flattering photo making the social media rounds showing Mayor Ford painting the town red. And then there are rumblings that one of the city’s newspapers is sitting on another mayoral scandal. A non-contested stay granted for the mayor on his conflict of interest conviction pending an appeal; an appeal John McGrath exhaustively assesses and concludes does not look overly strong. News from the Ford For Mayor 2010 campaign finance audit waits ominously in the wings.

Such bad boy/cowboy behaviour would all be so riveting if Rob Ford was, I don’t know, the professional football player he always wanted to be, or a rock star. It would be gripping fodder for the yellow pages of tabloids if he was a member of the royal family. Right proper grist for the infotainment mill.

Unfortunately, he’s the mayor of our city. His Worship and all that. Instead of providing leadership, he’s simply proving to be a major distraction.

And hey, that might not be too great a blow to his own cause, given the news trickling out of this week’s Budget Committee review of the staff’s proposed 2013 operating and capital budgets. Why just today, word emerges of the cuts to the city’s Fire Services. A Swansea Runnymede Road firehouse closed, reduction in trucks to others. It can’t possibly help already worrisome response times in the city. I wonder if Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong plans on alerting insurance companies to that fact, see if they can scare council straight like he did with the plastics lobby and the bag ban.

Councillor Janet Davis has suggested this is the year the city will eliminate some 41,000 shelter beds. A fight is a-brewing over budget reductions for the Toronto Police Services. The Planning Department remains woefully under-staffed. TTC rider subsidies shrink again with another fare increase and a flat-lined budget from council.

This is nothing like the easy finding of efficiencies and gravy that the mayor promised during the campaign in 2010. It is the slash and burn scenario all his opponents promised. No service cuts, guaranteed is a broken pledge much harder to dismiss than any onslaught of personal foibles.

Especially if you can blame those kind of setbacks on others, that ever growing list of far left enemies who’ve spent nearly 3 years now trying to discredit the mayor and nullify his election victory. Mayor Ford’s just trying to do his job, looking out for the little guy and respecting the taxpayers, if only bullies like Adam Vaughan, Gord Perks, Shelley Carroll and their cabal of sore loser whingers in league with unelected and activist judges would stop trying to subvert democracy. Who hasn’t occasionally slipped up and fallen afoul of the rules and regulations? Everybody knows everybody does it. Buried bodies will be unearthed.

The amazing thing is, we wouldn’t accept such shirking of responsibility from a wayward teenager, trying to blame their failing grades on the distraction of classmates. Yet plenty of voices are still willing to give Mayor Ford a pass on his growing pile of transgressions. It’s not his fault but the fault of the fault finders. If a mayor breaks the rules but there’s no one around to see him do it, does he really break the rules?

Every time he digs himself out from under some sad spectacle or sideshow he’s served up, he vows to forge ahead, get on with the job he was elected to do and [fill in meaningless campaign slogan here]. But increasingly, there’s nowhere for him to go. He’s the kid at the back of the room, disrupting class. Teacher! Teacher! Look at me! I don’t have the answer but let me crack wise and make fart noises!

Whatever happens with his appeal in January and a possible by-election as a result of it, it already seems as if we’ve passed the point of no return where redemption seems even beyond a faint hope. Rob Ford has become a punch line not a mayor. His edict from afar to hold the budget line at 0 and keep taxes low is making him no new friends while even once steadfast allies are lining up behind each other to keep their distance from the toxic cloud billowing from his office. It’s hard to see how he can take control back of the wheel at this point.

The question at the end of another roller coaster week is why does Rob Ford even want to try?

— wonderingly submitted by Cityslikr