Letter from Toronto (07/12/13)
Private Eye, the UK's best and only fortnightly satirical magazine, has a great take on events in Toronto and the fortunes of the city's Mayor, Rob Ford.
Letter from Toronto
from Our Own Correspondent
Toronto has long relished its relative international anonymity. Big, prosperous, clean and safe, we've managed to escape too much attention over the years, partly because New York is just an hour's flight away and Canada is, well, Canada.
Now our own political superstar mayor Rob Ford - a crack smoking, heavy-drinking, foul-mouthed, gangster-knowing 21-stone clown - has changed all that. American comics have suddenly found a foreigner to mock every night on television, and British journalists are merrily mispronouncing Canadian towns and names as they report on what they think they know.
There is no doubt that Ford is ludicrously unstable and has used illegal drugs, and his absurd bumbling around contradicting himself has scraped away whatever credibility he had. But there are still legions of people in this city who adore the man: principally working-class, black, brown and unfashionable Torontonians He is hated by our establishment and adored by others for that very reason.
Ford spent years coaching an inner-city Canadian football team composed mainly of black kids from broken homes, and often saved them from gangs and guns. He did it for no payment and even donated large amounts of his own cash. He also allowed teenagers in trouble to sleep at his home and helped them get their lives back together.
As mayor he made numerous personal visits to poor, troubled areas to inspect public housing, have toilets and plumbing repaired and rodents removed. His critics said it was cosmetic reform; his fans say it changed their very existence.
Then there are his political rivals. The man he defeated, George Smitherman, is a notorious bully and was himself addicted to drugs. As a former liberal minister and gay activist, however, he was treated very differently by the media than the fat conservative Ford.
Just a few miles from Toronto is London, a major city of almost half a million people. The mayor there has been charged with using public funds to finance his son's wedding, but hardly a word is said about a scandal that could lead to the former Liberal MP going to prison.
One-time socialist leader jack Layton, who enabled his party to become Canada's national opposition, was found some years ago by the police in a brothel n the company of an immigrant prostitute. Pathetic even in vice, he made his way to the massage parlour on his bicycle and then cycled off again after the cops caught him. Layton was also discovered to be living in a rent-controlled building, even though he was wealthy and the housing was designed for the poor. All this was largely ignored mainstream media, and when Layton died the CBC, our version of the BBC, made a hagiographical biopic of the man that even he would have blushed at, let alone his old friend the Chinese masseuse.
The tragedy of all this is that Ford's absurdity has provided a smokescreen around the Ontario Liberal government's appalling and shamefaced spending of £500,000 of taxes to try to win three parliamentary seats, and a federal Tory scandal involving three members of the Senate, our upper chamber, and senior political advisers allegedly committing fraud and being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our version of the FBI.
While Rob Ford has broken the law and is a bit of a joke, the more serious corruption and crime is being ignored - and that's not funny at all.
Letter from Toronto
from Our Own Correspondent
Toronto has long relished its relative international anonymity. Big, prosperous, clean and safe, we've managed to escape too much attention over the years, partly because New York is just an hour's flight away and Canada is, well, Canada.
Now our own political superstar mayor Rob Ford - a crack smoking, heavy-drinking, foul-mouthed, gangster-knowing 21-stone clown - has changed all that. American comics have suddenly found a foreigner to mock every night on television, and British journalists are merrily mispronouncing Canadian towns and names as they report on what they think they know.
There is no doubt that Ford is ludicrously unstable and has used illegal drugs, and his absurd bumbling around contradicting himself has scraped away whatever credibility he had. But there are still legions of people in this city who adore the man: principally working-class, black, brown and unfashionable Torontonians He is hated by our establishment and adored by others for that very reason.
Ford spent years coaching an inner-city Canadian football team composed mainly of black kids from broken homes, and often saved them from gangs and guns. He did it for no payment and even donated large amounts of his own cash. He also allowed teenagers in trouble to sleep at his home and helped them get their lives back together.
As mayor he made numerous personal visits to poor, troubled areas to inspect public housing, have toilets and plumbing repaired and rodents removed. His critics said it was cosmetic reform; his fans say it changed their very existence.
Then there are his political rivals. The man he defeated, George Smitherman, is a notorious bully and was himself addicted to drugs. As a former liberal minister and gay activist, however, he was treated very differently by the media than the fat conservative Ford.
Just a few miles from Toronto is London, a major city of almost half a million people. The mayor there has been charged with using public funds to finance his son's wedding, but hardly a word is said about a scandal that could lead to the former Liberal MP going to prison.
One-time socialist leader jack Layton, who enabled his party to become Canada's national opposition, was found some years ago by the police in a brothel n the company of an immigrant prostitute. Pathetic even in vice, he made his way to the massage parlour on his bicycle and then cycled off again after the cops caught him. Layton was also discovered to be living in a rent-controlled building, even though he was wealthy and the housing was designed for the poor. All this was largely ignored mainstream media, and when Layton died the CBC, our version of the BBC, made a hagiographical biopic of the man that even he would have blushed at, let alone his old friend the Chinese masseuse.
The tragedy of all this is that Ford's absurdity has provided a smokescreen around the Ontario Liberal government's appalling and shamefaced spending of £500,000 of taxes to try to win three parliamentary seats, and a federal Tory scandal involving three members of the Senate, our upper chamber, and senior political advisers allegedly committing fraud and being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our version of the FBI.
While Rob Ford has broken the law and is a bit of a joke, the more serious corruption and crime is being ignored - and that's not funny at all.
