A weary-looking Rob Ford paid an unexpected visit to City Hall on Friday.
Bald from chemotherapy treatments and unusually subdued, the outgoing mayor went into his office and then made the rounds on the second floor, visiting with the few councillors in the building during this post-election transition period before mayor-elect John Tory and the new council are sworn in.
After he emerged from the councillors’ offices, he held an uncharacteristically long scrum with reporters and seemed reflective as he talked about his cancer treatments, reclaiming his old council seat, and his tumultuous four-year reign as mayor.
“I’m not feeling too good. I got some news that I really didn’t want to get two days ago,” Ford said, sounding tired. He confirmed that two rounds of chemotherapy have failed to shrink the grapefruit-sized tumour in his abdomen, and doctors have told him he will have to undergo three to five more rounds so the tumour can be reduced to a point where it can be surgically removed.
“I guess the good news is they said they stopped the growth, or slowed down the growth of the tumour,” he said. “The bad news is that the tumour hasn’t gotten smaller. So unfortunately we’re back to square one.”
According to Ford, his third round of chemotherapy had to be delayed after doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia, which he continues to suffer from. The chemotherapy will resume on Monday, and the mayor is expected to be in hospital for several days at least. His previous treatments have left him feeling fatigued and “sore throughout my body,” he said, and he acknowledged he was in for a “rough ride.”
“I just got to hang in there. I have to,” he said.
Ford was forced to end his re-election bid in September after doctors discovered the tumour, which turned out to be a rare and aggressive form of cancer called liposarcoma. He registered to run for his old seat in Ward 2 (Etobicoke North) instead, a race he won easily in Monday’s election with 59 per cent of the vote. He’s unsure if he’ll be well enough able to attend the swearing-in ceremony on December 2, but said he “can’t wait to have our first big debate.”
Asked what role he hopes to play in new administration, Ford said he looked forward to working with Tory and stated he would like to be appointed to one of the “big money committees” like government management, audit, or public works. He wouldn’t turn down the deputy mayor position either. He said he hadn’t yet spoken to Tory however and that the pair were “playing some telephone tag.”
“They all know that I have the experience, that I can help them out in a lot of ways. But that’s up to them to decide. I’m flexible,” the mayor said. “Whatever he wants to give me, I’ll accept it.”
It was a quiet day at City Hall, with Toronto set to turn the page on Ford’s calamitous mayoralty in favour of what will surely be a more stable period under Tory. As he stood outside his office on almost the exact spot where one year ago he sent the city into political convolutions by finally admitting to smoking crack cocaine, one reporter asked how he thinks his administration will be remembered. He paused for a few seconds and smiled.
“It will definitely be remembered, put it that way,” he said, laughing. “No one’s going to forget it. Obviously, there’s good and bad parts to it, and you know people are going to remember it the way they want to remember it. A lot of it is your own personal choice, right? People know that I saved a lot of money, and people are going to know that I had a few personal struggles. So you can remember it for what you want. But they’re definitely going to remember it.”
bens@nowtoronto.com | @BenSpurr
