Good riddance Rob Ford

December 4, 2013 · 0 Comments

Dear editor:

It takes a certain type of person to stand by Rob Ford. Typically Blue Collar, hard working, part of the shrinking middle class. This type of person is being slighted by what seems like a continual deluge of not so fair by-laws, taxes, public transit woes and the list goes on.

They are the kind of people that feel they are continually unrepresented in city council as well as Queenspark. This, is how Mr. Ford pandered to ‘Ford Nation’. “Stop the gravy train, look at all these entitled people making all this money and STILL demanding perks!”. Thank-you Ford for eliminating the donut and coffee table from council meetings (that was definitely at the top of my list).

Not since Mel Lastman have we seen a man who seems more in tune with the needs of the middle class. But what has he done so far to ease the pains of said group? Ford and his brother Ford 2.0 continually claim they have saved the city millions. Actually, Ford 2.0 claimed to CNN’s Bill Weir that it was billions. You don’t see Ford Nation correcting that mis-information do you? But when you scrutinize the numbers, Fords math is all smoke and mirrors. He abolished the vehicle registration tax and in the same breath he voted to raise property taxes by 1.6 percent. He has claimed to be one of the first Mayor’s to maintain a balanced budget and cut off the infamous “Gravy Train”. However, the city of Toronto is required by law to operate within a balanced budget, and that has been a law in the books since 1922.

He represents himself as an everyman’s man, just another Joe Blow planting his butt down at the bar after another hard day at work. Taking on all those privileged and entitled people unlike himself is hard work right? Let’s clarify the facts. The Ford brothers were raised in a very privileged family themselves. Doug Ford Sr. founded a company that maintained sales of just over 100 million at the time of his death. This legacy has been passed on to Ford and Ford 2.0. Rob had been working as a city councillor for 10 years before being elected Mayor, at which time his brother entered the political ring replacing Rob as councillor for the same area. A part of the people? I think not. Part of the politico, duping the common guy into thinking he is out for their interests? Most definitely.

So who is this media frenzy helping? The Fords of course! What better way to distract from the blatant fool-doggery that Ford uses against his own constituents. He knows that none of us are going to do more than breeze through the papers formulating our opinions from sound bites and article headlines. On one side, we have Ford Nation crying foul, shame on the media, attacking our own. On the other side, we have the unrepresented liberal middle class crying foul, shame on Ford, how dare he air his dirty laundry in public and embarrass our city.

We are all missing the point. The democratically elected Mayor has been found to be colluding with known drug dealers, known crime organizations, showing up drunk to public events (not to mention the fact that he DROVE HIMSELF to these events). He has been recorded smoking crack, using homophobic slurs, making sexist comments and even a crazy rant about how he would kill someone as of yet unmentioned while extremely ‘inebriated’.

This is no longer an issue of right vs left, blue collar vs white, elite vs have-nots and certainly has nothing to do with weight, race, or sexuality. But Ford and Ford 2.0 love when people take that angle. That way they can continue to milk the tax payer for their salaries, associate with shady charecters and make back room deals with little to no concern for the public.

Good riddance I say, now let’s get back to city hall business. Let’s find someone to make city council work together instead of polarize and divide them.

Darren Leblanc,

Innisfi