BY COLE FROUDE
Toronto’s mayor Rob Ford continues to be the centre of attention, making headlines all over the world after admitting he did, in fact, smoke crack, but he refuses to step down as mayor.
His political career has been mired in controversy even before he became mayor. In 2010 when Ford was just a mayoral candidate he was asked by a Toronto Sun reporter of an incident in Florida back in February 1999 where he was arrested for drunk driving and marijuana possession. He denied it, but later backtracked, saying he “forgot” about the incident. How can you forget if you get arrested?
Let’s jump ahead a few years to Aug. 14, 2012. A Twitter user who goes by the name of @RyanGHaughton snapped a picture of the mayor reading while driving on a busy highway in Toronto. The photo made its way around social media. When a reporter asked the mayor if he read while driving his response was,“Yeah, probably, I’m busy.”
On June 19, 2013 the infamous crack video is reported on and the website, Gawker, holds a kickstarter where if they reached a goal of $200,000 they would buy and release the video. Ford denied the video existed saying (say the following in Cartman’s voice from South Park):
“These allegations are ridiculous. It’s another story the Toronto Star is going after me. That’s all I have to say for now.”
After denying it repeatedly, on Oct. 30 Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair called a press conference and confirmed that they had a copy of the video after recovering it from a hard drive and that it is consistent with what has been described in the media.
Finally Ford admits and apologizes for smoking crack on Nov. 5.
Despite all this controversy, he still has the nerve to say he won’t step down. You have got to hand it to the disgraced mayor though. It must be really hard to run one of the biggest cities in Canada while on crack. Now crack addicts everywhere can think, wow, I can be mayor one day if I just believe in myself.
All joking aside, Rob Ford needs to step down and go to rehab pronto.
The views herein represent the position of the newspaper, not necessarily the author.
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