Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Desperate to Remain in the Limelight

Hey—did you hear the latest about Rob Ford? No, not the crack-video thing. Not the cunnilingus-comment thing. Not the five-thousand-dollars-and-a-car thing. Not the knocking-over-a-colleague-in-the-Council-chamber thing. Not the reference-letter-for-a-convicted-murderer thing. You know: the latest Rob Ford news.

The shenanigans of Canada’s most infamous mayor in history continue unabated as Ford—who continues to fascinate Canadians as the highest trending search term on Google—made a non-apology for implying Toronto Star city hall correspondent Daniel Dale was a pedophile in an interview with similarly disgraced Canuck Conrad Black.

The statement, which Ford’s lawyer Dennis Morris said was written by Ford himself, was read by Rob Ford on the floor of the Council chamber in his familiarly clipped, irritated tone—the one your dad used to use in his “I’ve had it up to here, guys” speech after you and your friends would mess up the rec room. Let’s face it: Ford may eat a lot of things enthusiastically, but humble pie is not one of them.

On the same day, Morris announced to the press that Ford had lost 26 pounds since starting his weight loss regimen five weeks ago (with the help of his trainer, a convicted steroid trafficker, who is banned from coaching in Canada—just as Ford himself was banned from coaching football at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School. Keep up with me, now.). It’s as if Ford’s apology to Dale was a literal load off, lightening the Earth’s gravitational pull on the mayor-in-name-only to give him renewed vim and vigor.

In the same day, Rob Ford expended that newfound energy berating Councillor McConnell, giving a bobblehead of himself to a visiting Santa, and dancing to reggae in the chamber, according to a Globe and Mail report. (Psst: when people talk about a jolly fat man giving out presents, they don’t mean you, Mayor Ford.)

All of this behaviour, or “acting out” as parents of small children would call it, smacks of a man who is either cutting loose now that the Christmas holidays are upon him, or who is desperate to continue making news in order to maintain momentum for the much-ballyhooed 2014 mayoral election. For his part, Daniel Dale said of Rob Ford’s chamber comments, “Whether you want to call it a non-apology, a half-apology, or an insincere apology, it was clearly insufficient.”

“Clearly insufficient.” If ever there was a fitting epitaph for a certain Toronto mayor, that’s got to be it.