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A question of integrity

Rob Ford likes to play the populist, but the key to his psyche is his belief that the rules everyone else follows don’t apply to him. Add to that his utter failure to distinguish private interests from public functions and his wilful nastiness and you pretty much have the picture. Here are some behavioural clues to the inner workings of Ford’s headspace.

May 2011

• Did Rob Ford’s campaign borrow almost $70,000 from a Ford family company? We don’t know. A probe by the Compliance Audit Committee on the basis of a citizen complaint is ongoing.

July 2011

• The mayor in a typical fight-first reflex gives the finger to a woman who spots him talking on his cellphone while driving.

October 2011

• “I’m Rob fucking Ford, the mayor of this city!” a 911 dispatcher reports the mayor spat out when the police failed to respond lickety-split to his call about This Hour Has 22 Minutes comic Mary Walsh, aka Marg Delahunty, staking out his driveway.

February 2012

• Ford engineers a vote by the TTC board to sack super-competent TTC general manager Gary Webster for dissing the mayor’s Sheppard subway plan, thus striking fear in any bureaucrat who wants to serve the public.

• When TTC chair Karen Stintz defies Ford and wins a council vote for her transit plan, the chief magistrate imperiously declares the will of council “irrelevant.”

March 2012

• Businessman Paul Magder files a legal application alleging Ford broke the Municipal Conflict Of Interest Act for voting to excuse himself from paying back $3,150 donated improperly to his football foundation. Case ends in Monday’s ruling.

April 2012

• Ford calls the salary of Medical Officer of Health Dr. David McKeown “an embarrassment” and charges he exceeded his authority by pushing for lower speed limits. A complaint is filed with the integrity commissioner.

May 2012

• The mayor tries to buy land from the Toronto Conservation Authority, and when Star reporter Daniel Dale probes this attempt by an elected official to annex public space and checks out Ford’s property line, Ford physically charges the panicked reporter.

• A freedom of information request turns up the fact that the mayor attends only 11 meetings a week some months. Reports surface that he’s a no-show at long-scheduled meetings.

August 2012

• Twitter photo shows Ford driving on the Gardiner while reading. No sense of responsibility to model safe behaviour on the road here. Ford says only, “Trying to catch up on my work. I’m a busy man.” Police beg him to get a driver and save a life.

September 2012

• Ford testifies at his conflict of interest hearing, unbelievably, that despite his 10 years on council he has never seen the council handbook explaining the Municipal Conflict Of Interest Act.

• Reports surface that the mayor dekes out of public duties to coach football, in one case chucking an exec committee meeting five hours before it ends, and that staffers in his office and cellphones on the public dime are used to help his football team.

• Toronto resident Jude MacDonald files a complaint with the integrity commissioner alleging that Ford violated council’s Code Of Conduct by using city resources for his football hobby.

• Ford uses his pull as mayor – exercising rights no other resident has – to call senior officials in the city transportation department to request unscheduled road repairs outside his private company in time for its 50th-anniversary bash.

October 2012

• Ombudsman Fiona Crean charges the mayor’s office with interfering in the process by which residents are appointed to the boards of city agencies. Ford’s aides, she says, tried to have diversity requirements removed from recruitment ads, meddled with key deadlines and submitted a list of preferred candidates.

• Integrity Commissioner Janet Leiper recommends Ford be reprimanded for violating the city’s Code Of Conduct by unfairly “demeaning” Medical Officer of Health David McKeown.

• In a fit of pique, Ford calls for the elimination of the office of the integrity commissioner, the ombudsman and the lobbyist registrar and recommends they be replaced by a part-time lawyer. Call it sheer nastiness: he shorts the ombudsman’s renewed contract by three years.

July 2012

• Immediately after the Danzig Street shootings, Ford, in some bizarre urge to divide, calls for immigration law changes to rid the city of violent crime, thus raising the spectre that newcomers are the problem.

November 2012

• Ford faces the consequences of loose lips – Boardwalk Café owner George Foulidis launches a $6 million libel case against Ford, claiming the mayor slandered him by suggesting his 20-year deal with the city was criminal.

• In the course of coaching his football team – when he should have been in council – Ford calls TTC CEO Andy Byford demanding to know the whereabouts of a TTC bus sent to chauffeur the team home after an on-field dispute. Passengers on a Finch bus are dumped in the rain so the vehicle can be diverted. Byford tells Ford, in the future, if the matter’s personal, don’t call me.

• The Globe reports that the mayor facilitates an irregular meeting between Toronto Water’s top staffer and Apollo Health and Beauty Care, a company being probed for alleged sewage discharge problems. The punchline? The firm does business with the Ford brothers’ Deco Labels and Tags.

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