An altered campaign sign hangs from a white picket fence on Islington Avenue. “Get well Mayor Ford,” it reads.
Mayor Rob Ford has been too sick after news of his cancer diagnosis last month to campaign for his old council seat in Ward 2 Etobicoke North, but his presence is still being felt by candidates and voters.
For opponents, Ford’s absence is a symptom of the ward’s problems, but as they go to the polls today, voters are divided. Many seem happy to hear that Ford is back and running for the seat he held for three terms as city councillor before he was elected mayor in 2010. For others his cancer diagnosis is leading them to reconsider their vote.
Ford wasn’t at a recent all-candidate’s debate held at the Rexdale Alliance Church, where a crowd of fewer than 50 people showed to hear half of the ward’s 14 candidates field questions on issues ranging from transit to the mothballed Woodbine Live mega-casino project.
Event organizer Don Dearlove said he didn’t invite Ford because of the mayor’s illness and the fact he has not run a visible campaign. But he also organized the event because there were no other Ward 2 debates before the election. A televised debate on Rogers on October 2 was the only other chance residents have had to hear contestants.
Dearlove used to support Ford and canvassed for him in the last election. But his personal faith in the candidate has been shaken by the scandals and the Fords initially choosing to run their nephew Michael Ford as a candidate prior to the mayor’s cancer diagnosis September 12. That switch-up saw the mayor run here and his brother Doug, the former councillor for the area, run for mayor.
“I can’t trust him,” Dearlove says.
Long-time Rexdale resident Jennie Steenwyk said after the debate that she “liked the fact that Rob Ford was not here, quite frankly, [because] you could hear the candidates speak and not be drowned out by his supporters.”
Candidates at the debate seized the opportunity to talk policy and get in a few digs.
Andray Domise, who is widely perceived to be Ford’s chief rival, spoke out on the fact the mayor didn’t release a statement after the October 6 shooting deaths of two students across the street from Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School in the south end of the ward (where coincidentally Ford used to coach football).
“How is it remotely possible that when young men and women lose their lives going to school, [Ford] can’t stop for a few minutes and just make a statement about those horrible crimes and what he’s going to do going forward to make sure they never happen again?” asked Domise.
Domise, who grew up in the ward, accuses both Fords of “massive and long-standing neglect” of the area.
Support for the Fords is spread across Ward 2, popularly known as the epicentre of Ford Nation, including in the multi-ethnic south end of the ward, which is also where many of the crack scandal’s turning points occurred. The latest Forum poll suggests Ford at 45 per cent support, with Domise at 15 per cent and Munira Abukar, a young Somali-Canadian candidate, at 14 per cent.
Speaking the night before the election, Domise’s campaign manager Andrew Young admits, “We could really use another week.” But he cast doubt on the Forum results saying he’s still expecting a close race.
Abukar was philosophical about her chances, saying she was excited to see results after polls close at 8 p.m.
In the 2006 and 2010 elections held before the crack scandal that made international headlines broke, runner-up Cadigia Ali, a Somali-Canadian health professional, came a distant second to the Fords winning 15 per cent and 13 per cent of the vote, respectively. She won most of her votes in polling stations along Dixon Road, some of which were in the buildings raided by police as part of the Project Traveller raids last summer where police say the infamous crack video of Ford was retrieved from a computer hard drive.
While the Fords’ support in minority communities, particularly the Somali-Canadian community living in Toronto Community Housing, is touted as a major reason for their lasting popularity here, Somali-speaking residents make up a small number of voters, just over four per cent of the population. English speakers, meanwhile, account for half the ward’s population. And some 40 per cent of the ward’s residents live in single-detached homes.
Nigel Barriffe, a community activist, school teacher and former provincial NDP candidate, says the Fords have created an attractive narrative of being available to the community.
“But all the stuff that’s happened, like the admitted use of crack cocaine, the not answering the questions that those of us in the community have asked, have taken a toll on his support,” Bariffe says.
However, Barriffe notes that people who don’t normally vote come out to cast their ballots for the Fords, making exact levels of support at the polls difficult to gauge. Public opinion polls have shown Domise consistently in second. But it’s been an uphill battle for the dapper financial planner, despite widespread media exposure and an endorsement from the Toronto Star recently.
Ford signs are hard to come by in a campaign that has varyingly been described by opponents as a phantom campaign. Besides the mayor’s health issues, reports of racist graffiti and reports of racist taunts against Ford opponents have dominated headlines. Last week, Abukar’s lawn signs were defaced again, this time with the words “Terror Bitch” and a swastika painted in red.
At Humberwood Community Centre in the riding’s northwest, the polling station serving the largest electoral subdivision in Ward 2, residents I spoke with after Ford’s cancer diagnosis last month expressed a range of opinions about the mayor’s run for council. Some 72 per cent of the 1,200 residents who cast ballots here in 2010 voted for a Ford in 2010.
Faye Calalang, picking up her children, planned to vote for Ford despite his diagnosis and the switch-up with his nephew. She said all the Fords have contributed to the community.
Another who supported Ford for mayor in 2010, says the mayor’s illness means his vote will go elsewhere. “I do feel sorry for [Rob Ford], but I prefer someone who is healthy running Etobicoke,” says Hassam Ghedi.
Several others with misgivings about his health said they plan to vote for Ford, regardless.
“I’m a big fan,” says Sharon Haniff, who’s relying on his “strong will” to pull him through.
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