ArchiveNovember 2013

By: Metro Canada Published on Wed Nov 27 2013 Set aside all that tiresome mayoral scandal stuff. It’s time to delve into the fast-paced world of municipal budgeting. City Hall's budget season launched Monday. Mayor Rob Ford was there. So was Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, who recently absorbed most of Ford’s powers. He brings some perspective on city finance that isn’t based on gut feeling or...

By: Metro Published on Thu Nov 21 2013 With his powers stripped away and the police still looking to talk to him, Mayor Rob Ford has spent much of the last week doing what anyone would do if they were in his situation: chatting with the U.S. media. He’s done Fox News, CNN and the Today Show so far. It’s a desperation move, and I’m not exactly sure why Ford or his councillor brother Doug — who has...

Published on Tue Nov 19 2013 So, what happened? With a series of votes on Friday and Monday, a supermajority of Toronto City Council took unprecedented steps to limit Mayor Rob Ford’s non-statutory powers. He’s still the mayor, but he doesn’t have control over much, with many of his responsibilities now in the hands of Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly. Why did they do that? What, you haven’t heard? It...

By: Metro Published on Tue Nov 12 2013 In addition to getting to be a bobblehead, one of the perks of being Mayor of Toronto is that you get to designate “key items” on city council’s agenda. These are the items that are debated first — generally introduced with a big, powerful mayoral speech — so they tend to align with the mayor’s agenda. So it’s kind of interesting that, when Toronto City...

Mayor Rob Ford apologized at least three times this week. Once for drunkenness. Once for crack cocaine, consumed while in a state of drunkenness. (A “stupor!”) And once following the release of a pretty exciting video in which the mayor of Canada's largest city says he will “kill that f**king guy” and calls himself a “sick motherf**ker, dude.” (His mother and sister also kind of apologized...