By Ray Rivers
September 17, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
I wrote this piece before we had learned of the actual diagnosis. Our wishes are all with Mr. Ford for a speedy and complete recovery. He deserves all of our support in this battle of his life.
Well it’s a tough one – you would have voted for Rob Ford but now it’s his brother. At a high school reunion the other day, a couple guys, who live in Rob Ford’s Toronto, wanted to bet me he’d get re-elected mayor. I should have taken the bet. They voted for him last time, disowned him only last year, but were seriously thinking of him again.
Doug Ford has been described as kind-of like his brother but without the comedy act. I can’t imagine any late night shows inviting Doug to enliven their audiences. Though quality of dialogue isn’t what made his brother Rob so popular. It was the unbelievable dribble, contradictions, lies and obscenities that made him so much fun to watch.
Just plain boring – with other agricultural interests?
Truth is Doug is plain boring – he lacks his brother’s charm. Remember that radio talk-show they used to have? Well Doug was always the straight-man, right? He has other talents I’m sure, but really lacks a good stand-up routine. And that has to change if he is to be taken seriously as the ‘mini-me’ candidate to his younger brother.
Toronto voters have a lot of choice this election. In fact some 67 people had registered as mayoralty candidates this time. I mean why vote for politically right-leaning Doug Ford when you can get the real thing with the ultra-right, neo-nazi, Don Andrews? And if you want something completely different, there is always the dominatrix, Mizz Barbie Bitch’ Ritch who’d just love to whip Toronto into shape.
No question that since Rob Ford’s reign, everyone looks at City Hall as one big circus – so who better to run it than ‘Sketchy the Clown’, Dave McKay? And what about someone called Happy Happy, who lives out the ‘Hokey-Pokey’ in real time, registering for office then pulling out, then registering again, then pulling out again… and that’s what it’s all about. Gosh isn’t that just like the transit debate – light rail is in, and then it’s out and then subways are in, and they shake it all about…
I, too, was diagnosed with a tumour in my abdomen, back a while ago. So I gave up running for office and have been OK ever since. I had a business associate, a friend, who looked like he had inadvertently impregnated himself. Everybody just assumed it was obesity, but he got diagnosed with a benign tumour the size of a basket ball in his abdomen. Once the operation was over, he was a much relieved man.
Rob Ford, as of this writing, is still waiting for the diagnosis of his tumour, mine was cancer, so we all hope his problem is more like the other guy’s. But perhaps Mr. Ford should give up running for office too – and not just for his health – for the rest of us who are through laughing at the ridiculous, and ever so tired of his adolescent antics.
And what is with this family thing? Oh sure, after JFK was assassinated Bobby ran as President, and then Teddy tried to run in his brothers’ stead. But that was the Kennedy dynasty not Toronto’s Fords. Still, patriarch Joe Kennedy made his money doing a lot of what Doug reportedly did at one point in his life – dealing in illegal substances. And the Fords have deep pockets too, despite this masquerade at being with, for, and of the common man.
Whose interests are being served?
Fortunately the mayor is just another vote at council. They took away a bunch of his responsibilities, and he wasn’t around for a lot of the time anyway between football coaching and rehab. Yet, despite his delinquencies, Toronto survived Rob Ford. So chances are good, almost no matter who gets elected, the city will survive – not like our sister city Detroit.
Another guy named Ford made Detroit one of America’s greatest back when. He was a real entrepreneur who founded the world’s fourth largest auto maker. And the city did get a little help from the Supremes and those other Motown music folk as well. But then decay set in and half a century later Detroit faced its second ‘Black Day in July’ – as it declared bankruptcy last year. I’d like to think that would never have happened if Henry were still around.
And don’t we wish Henry were the Ford now running to be Toronto’s mayor. Of course, there are other candidates with experience such as Olivia Chow, and that guy with that unfortunate name, which makes him sound like he personally owns the Progressive Conservative party. But if I lived in Toronto I’d seriously start thinking about that ‘Sketchy’ character. How could he be any worse for the city than the last clown they had?
Ray Rivers writes weekly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was a candidate for provincial office in Burlington where he ran against Cam Jackson in 1995, the year Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution swept the province.
Doug Ford Illegal Substances Rob ford Story Rob Ford More
Mayor Candidates Joe Kennedy Detroit Bankruptcy
Please feel free to choose some — any — other font, if you wish. This one not conducive to comfortable reading, in my opinion.
I wrote this piece before we had learned of the actual diagnosis. Our wishes are all with Mr. Ford for a speedy and complete recovery. He deserves all of our support in this battle of his life.