Twitter pounced on the news that Toronto
Mayor Rob Ford was kicked out of office Monday.
The ruling was felt in the Twitterverse much farther than Toronto — ‘Rob Ford’ was trending worldwide. It was covered in blogs, on news sites and even on Craigslist from the GTA, to
Los Angeles, to
Iceland.
On Facebook, a man in Vienna named Michael Woods, with a Canadian flag patch on his bag, said he was approached by a man who said, “‘Did you hear Rob Ford’s been booted from office?’ I actually almost fell out of my chair. News travels fast.”
Locally, Kids in the Hall alum Mark McKinney tweeted, “This may prove a good day for Toronto but this is a TERRIBLE day for comedy.”
Parody Rob Ford Twitter account, HULKMAYOR, also weighed in on the ruling. He tweeted: “OKAY HULKMAYOR DECIDE WILL CHANGE VOTE ON REPAY FOOTBALL MONEY OKAY? PROBLEM SOLVE!”
A Craigslist user also posted a
fake ad for “one slightly used Ford for sale. White with red trim.” The ad notes the $1 item is “ideal for hauling football equipment or towing your gravy train.”
Rob Ford has achieved what no previous Toronto mayor could accomplish — being booted from office, by court order, due to his own pig-headed bumbling. And he can thank no one but himself.
Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland had little choice. Ford blatantly broke Ontario’s conflict-of-interest law when he voted on a city council motion that saved him from paying $3,150, from his own wallet, to return some improperly-raised donations. And the automatic penalty for such violations is disqualification from office.
The judge’s ruling, released Monday morning, put the result bluntly: “I declare the seat of the respondent, Robert Ford, on Toronto city council, vacant.”
That humiliating blow must surely penetrate even through Ford’s notoriously thick hide — especially since this is all Ford’s fault. Had he simply declared a conflict in this matter, and refrained from speaking and voting on the issue, there would be no case against him. The irony is that Ford didn’t even need to enter this particular fray, council ended up voting 22-12 to let him keep his money in his pocket.
The judge specifically rejected Ford’s claim that, despite his 12 years at city hall, including two as mayor, he still didn’t understand the workings of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. “It’s difficult to accept an error in judgment defense based essentially on a stubborn sense of entitlement,” Hackland wrote, adding that Ford’s actions amounted to “willful blindness.”
But it’s not all over for Ford. There are 14 days before the decision takes effect. In that time, Ford can file an appeal and seek a stay of Hackland’s verdict until the appeal is heard. If that stay is granted, Ford would remain mayor for several more months, at the minimum.
So it’s not like he’s loading his pencils, stapler and his “World’s Greatest Mayor” mug into a cardboard box right now and heading for an exit. But Ford’s a lot closer to that than he was a few days ago.
In another break in Ford’s favour, he could run for mayor again if he is ultimately ousted and councillors opt to hold a special election to replace him. Hackland could have ordered Ford to stay off city council. But that small gain is surely bleak comfort for the mayor and his supporters.
Despite their disappointment, the judge’s ruling is testament to the strength and quality of democracy at the municipal level. Governing from a “stubborn sense of entitlement” isn’t true leadership. And not even the mayor of Canada’s largest city is above the law. Whether he stays or goes, it’s time Ford learned that lesson.
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The crisis surrounding
Mayor Rob Ford deepened Monday with news that Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, his loyal attack dog for the past two years, is quitting Ford’s executive committee.
Mammoliti said he is responding to a flood of calls and emails to his office from constituents after a judge ruling that Ford broke provincial conflict of interest law. Ford has said he will appeal but, unless he gets another court to put the ruling on hold within 14 days, he will be removed from office.
“My constituents are very clearly telling me I should be quitting (executive committee) because of the judgment,” Mammoliti told reporters outside Ford’s city hall office.
“My gut is telling me that I should be quitting because there’s a lot of work to be done in council and it’s going to take all of us to do it and we have to forget about our partisanship for the next few months and make this thing work.”
Mammoliti has been one of Ford’s staunchest defenders and verbally attacked others who crossed Ford. He whipped votes at council for the administration with a thumb’s up or thumb’s down before important votes.
Mammoliti called that “a very tough role in this administration,” and said he continues to support Ford’s goal of cutting costs but suggested he is finished, at least for now, with officially being part of Ford’s team.
In the ruling that hit city hall like a bomb Monday morning, Justice Charles Hackland said Ford broke the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act by voting at council in February to absolve himself of the need to repay $3,150 he improperly solicited from lobbyists for his private football foundation.
However, aware of the potential chaos he was unleashing, Justice Charles Hackland put his own ruling on hold for 14 days to allow for judicial and civic government maneuvering.
Ford told a crush of reporters outside his office he plans to appeal. His lawyer Alan Lenczner is expected to quickly launch an appeal at Divisional Court and ask for a “stay” of Hackland’s ruling that would allow Ford to continue governing, albeit with a political sword over his head, until the appeal is finished.
Rob Ford out: Text of judge’s decision
James: All Torontonians will pay for Rob Ford's ‘wilful blindness’
Ford has 30 days to appeal. If he fails to get the order for his ouster put on hold, council will have the option of either appointing a councillor to be caretaker mayor until the end of the term in December 2014 or triggering a $7-million byelection.
Hackland, who could have banned Ford from seeking re-election for up to seven years, wrote he declined “to impose any further disqualification from holding office beyond the current term.”
John Mascarin, a municipal law expert not directly involved in this case, said he interprets that to mean Ford cannot run in a mayoral byelection if one is held before the end of the current council term, in late 2014.
Ford, pausing after fighting through journalists to get into his office on city hall’s second floor, said: “I’m going to appeal it and carry on with my job. I’m a fighter,” Ford told a crush of reporters outside his city hall office shortly after noon. “I’ve done a lot of great work in this city and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose . . .
“This comes down to left-wing politics. The left wing wants me out of here and they’ll do anything in their power. I’m going to fight tooth and nail to hold on to my job. If they do for some reason get me out I’ll be running right back. As soon as the next election, if there’s a byelection, I’ll be the first name on the ballot.”
Clayton Ruby, the lawyer who argued the conflict of interest allegation in court, said Ford has only himself to blame.
“Today’s decision shows that when you break the rules, there’s a price to pay,” said Ruby, a prominent constitutional lawyer who argued the case pro bono for Toronto resident Paul Magder, who made the conflict complaint.
“It’s important for the courts to assert that nobody is above the law, Rob Ford included . . . Rob Ford has said all along that he did this for the (football player) kids. He deserves credit for working with those kids, but he should have remembered that he had an obligation to those kids to set a good example for them . . . While we’re pleased to have won this case we’re also saddened by it.
“It is tragic that the elected mayor of a great city should bring himself to this and I use that language advisedly – Rob Ford did this to Rob Ford. It could so easily have been avoided. It could have been avoided if Rob Ford had used a bit of common sense and if he had played by the rules.”
Magder, a soft-spoken business executive who has said was motivated to make the complaint by a conviction that politicians must follow the rules — and not anti-Ford politics — started by telling reporters: “I want to say that I love this city. I care about it and all of us who live here . . .
“We have a lot of terrible problems that need our attention. We need to find leaders who are going to work hard to develop solutions and work together to succeed. I’m asking everybody, Let’s work together to build and nuture this city.”
At the February meeting, Ford made an impassioned speech urging council to excuse him — “To ask me to pay it out of my own pocket personally, there is just, there is no sense to this,” he said — and then voted with the 22-12 majority to cancel an earlier council order to reimburse the money.
The Municipal Conflict of Interest Act is strict: members of council cannot speak or vote on issues in which they have a financial interest.
Hackland could have allowed Ford to keep his job, even if he found that Ford broke the law, by accepting the argument that Ford’s actions were inadvertent or a result of an error in judgment, or that the amount of money in question — $3,150 — was unlikely to influence him.
But Hackland rejected all of the arguments put forth by Ford’s lawyer, Alan Lenczner. In dismissing the suggestion that Ford had made an error in judgment, Hackland suggested Ford had deliberately ignored the law in question.
“In view of the respondent’s leadership role in ensuring integrity in municipal government, it is difficult to accept an error in judgment defence based essentially on a stubborn sense of entitlement (concerning his football foundation) and a dismissive and confrontational attitude to the Integrity Commissioner and the Code of Conduct,” Hackland wrote.
“In my opinion, the respondent’s actions were characterized by ignorance of the law and a lack of diligence in securing professional advice, amounting to wilful blindness. As such, I find his actions are incompatible with an error in judgment.”
Hackland wrote, “Inadvertence involves oversight, inattention or carelessness. On the contrary, (Ford)’s participation was a deliberate choice.” And he noted that Ford himself told council in his speech that “personal repayment of $3,150 is precisely the issue that he objects to and delivering this message was his clear reason for speaking and voting as he did at the council meeting.”
Lenczner also contended that the conflict of interest law didn’t apply in this case and that council didn’t have the authority to force Ford to repay the money. Hackland disagreed.
Lenczner contended that the law is unfair if it does not allow councillors to speak in their own defence when they are faced with a financial penalty. Hackland suggested that the law might need reform — but he said the law is what it is at the moment, and the speaking issue “does not have anything to do with and cannot provide a justification for voting (rather than speaking) on a matter, as the respondent chose to do in this case.”
The saga began in 2010, when the city’s integrity commissioner, Janet Leiper,
ruled that then-councillor Ford was wrong to use official letterhead and other city resources to solicit donations from people lobbying the city.
Council agreed and ordered Ford to pay the money back. Ford refused to do so, and he ignored six reminders from the integrity commissioner before she brought the issue back to council for the fateful Feb. 7 debate. In March, Toronto resident Paul
Magder, aided by prominent lawyer Clayton Ruby, filed a lawsuit alleging Ford broke the law.
At the September court hearing, Ruby argued Ford was “reckless” and “wilfully ignorant” of the law when he did not recuse himself from the debate and vote.
Ford, who was on council for a decade before becoming mayor in late 2010, testified he never read the Conflict of Interest Act or the councillor orientation handbook. Nor, he said, did he attend councillor training sessions that covered conflicts of interest.
The mayor promised in his oath of office to “disclose conflicts of interest” but, when asked by Ruby if he understood the words, Ford said: “No. My interpretation of a conflict of interest, again, is it takes two parties and the city must benefit or a member of council must benefit.”
“As mayor he ought to have had a clear understanding of his obligations,” Ruby said. “This entire pattern of conduct shows that he chose to remain ignorant, and substituted his own view for that of the law,”
Ford, longtime coach of Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Eagles, vehemently disagreed, saying he acted only in the best interests of high school students.
Ford himself went into the trial saying he did nothing wrong. But during the grilling by Ruby, he allowed that, if he had been advised that voting on the matter could land him in court, he wouldn’t have voted.
“I would have declared a conflict like I have every other time,” Ford said. “But now that we’re here, I’m here. I can’t change what happened.”
Magder was directed to Ruby by Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler, a left-leaning civic activist and former trustee candidate who himself challenged Ford’s campaign financial statements. The city’s compliance audit committee found reason to ask for a forensic audit, which is expected to be completed by the end of December.
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