Tonight on The National, newsman Peter Mansbridge sat down at City Hall for an exclusive-ish interview with Toronto mayor Rob Ford and his brother, councillor Doug Ford. If you were looking for footage that dug any deeper than “three adult men sitting in chairs,” well, sorry.
Beyond Mayor Ford’s statement that he’s “finished” with drinking, and the allusion that he’s had some sort of Christian reawakening (“I’ve had a come to Jesus comment, if you want to call it that”) which he earlier sort of denied (“I’m not a very religious guy”), but then un-denied (“prayer’s very important to me”), the Fords pulled their usual insufferable pantomime: deflecting questions, obfuscating their answers, and constantly referring to a fiscal record that is way, way, way more dubious than the mayor makes it seem. No talk about Lisi. Deferrals to talk to the lawyer. Etc.
Even more disappointing was the inability of Mansbridge, who based on the huge banners adorning CBC HQ you’d think is positioned as a veteran at this kind of thing, to successfully bob and weave through the Ford’s flat-footed two-hander routine.
Of course, there was talk about drugs, and drugs Mayor Ford bought while in office. “You purchased drugs yourself?” Mansbridge asked, then clarifying, “As opposed to having been given [them] by a friend or whatever? You actually purchased the drugs?”
“Yes,” responded Ford, who then offered his own clumsy clarification. “I’ve bought marijuana.”
Mansbridge got on the whole crack/coke line, but never managed to suss out anything other than Ford’s already admitted use of crack while in office, on time, in an “isolated incident.” Instead of using the opportunity to grill Ford on his admitted use of the drug, something which may strike people as more notable and unbecoming than smoking pot, which literally no reasonable person ever would care about, Mansbridge chose instead to go the moralizing finger-waving route, behaving less like a journalist and more like a scornful nanny.
“What should people think about that?” begged the CBC’s banner personality on the network’s flagship nightly program. “Should they think that you should be charged?”
What? Does Rob Ford think that people should think that he should be charged for buying weed? Like…probably not. Right?
Unless Mansbridge’s tactic was to confuse Rob Ford into pulling out a crack pipe and taking a stress-relieving rip right in front of him, I’m not sure this question makes a lot of sense to ask, beyond being pretty much impossible for anyone, let alone Rob Ford, to answer.
Elsewhere, Ford offered up his usual excuses and delusional self-justifications. “I return thousands of calls,” says Ford, stressing the customer service thing that’s basically his only remaining policy point. (For what it’s worth, he once returned a call to me that I had totally forgot that I even made.) He also mentioned that his overconsumption of alcohol, and admitted tendency to find himself in drunken stupors, during which he admittedly smokes a little crack, is all a relative. As a “big guy” it takes Ford more drinks to get to a level where is sufficiently unwound the stress of his reported four hour workday. It also, allegedly, takes crack.
“Have I had some fun time on the weekends?” Ford asked Mansbridge. “Yes I have. And I think everyone has…Peter, I’m getting punished for my Friday or Saturday night, that I decided to have a few drinks.”
You’re not getting punished, Mr. Mayor. The people of Toronto are getting punished. As much as we laugh and revel and roll our eyes, your stupefying carnival of civic mortification has turned our city into an international joke, a late night punch line.
Over the course of his gamely fielding Mansbridge’s underhand softballs, Ford offered up once piece of legitimate insight. Referring to the removal of his powers, and the in-council personal attacks on his character, Ford opined, “They call this democracy? This is not a democracy. This is a dictatorship.”
You said it, bud.
The Fords seem to think that democracy amounts to a ceding of civic authority from voters to politicians, a mere acceptance of public trust. Yes, it is that. But that’s only the first step. The second, arguably much more important step, is to actually deliver on that trust. This is a duty that has as much to do with reflecting the opinions and policy goals of your electorate as not making an open farce of their trust in you.
“Democracy” is Greek for “power of the people.” It’s not “power by the people given to some guy who squanders their trust and shows up to work for four hours a day and yeah, maybe returns some calls, but otherwise pretty much does whatever he wants.” Without the follow-through on the public’s gifting of their democratic rights to their elected representatives, there truly is no democracy.
If Toronto City Council is a dictatorship, then Rob Ford’s the despot – using his elected position as a pretense for pursuing a life of indolence and public embarrassment, thinking the first half of the democratic exchange entitled him to ignore the second half. Rob Ford’s like a staffer at Subway who takes your order with a smile but, when it comes time to actually provide it, fucks off out back to piss on a tree all day.
“Some people are perfect,” Mayor Ford whined. “I’m not.”
No shit. This was on “the news.”
