Ford loses some of his powers

(Update)

The situation for Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is going from bad to worse. As a dramatic, controversial and unprecedented week comes to a close, the Mayor, who admitted to smoking crack cocaine a little more than two weeks ago, now says he’s planning on taking city councillors to court after they voted overwhelmingly in favour of motions that will reduce his political powers at city hall. Sean Leathong has more on this unfolding situation in Toronto. One that has never been seen in Canadian politics before. Sean this has been a historic week.

Talking with several veterans, they’ve never seen anything like that before and it’s not every day that a satellite truck from CNN comes all the way up from Atlanta to spend the week here. But it’s the vote today that has questions being raised about the democratic nature of what we’ve seen. After all, it is a democratically elected mayor being stripped of some of his powers. Now what he lost today was the ability to hire and fire anybody on committee and the ability to lead the city in the event of an emergency. And if council has their way on Monday, they’ll significantly reduce his budget, and bring it down to the size of a regular councillor and they’ll move that power over to the deputy mayor Norm Kelly. Now what Mayor Ford keeps is his ability to be the face of the city so he can go on trade missions like he did a little while ago like he did to Texas. And he will stay as the face of the city and that’s all until the next election and that on October 22nd. It’s those two things, the vote and the next election that the mayor and his brother were talking about after council ended this afternoon

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: “You just saw a million and a half dollars being squandered. And I’m fighting for the taxpayer. You just saw me up there fighting and fighting and fighting. You know what, the councillors had their say today, the taxpayer are going to have their say on October 22nd. That’s all I can say go Gerry, go, go go go.”

Doug Ford, Toronto City Councillor: “Democracy was trampled all over the city today. To the voters, 383,504 people voted for Rob Ford. Their rights were taken away today. October 27th, their rights will be reinstated. They’ll have an opportunity to vote for Rob Ford or not vote for Rob Ford.”

As the circus continues this afternoon, Doug Ford emerged from the Mayor’s office and asked for the American media and then started giving away autographed t-shirts from himself and mayor rob ford. He even threw in a “God Bless America” before entering the elevator and heading home for the weekend.

As I mentioned, there’s a crew from CNN here as well as Inside Edition from New York City. Afterwards, councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong spoke about why he thinks the actions of the Mayor were justified and their vote today in the actions of a Mayor who seems to have lost his way: “He’s put himself in this position by the choices that he’s made, and council made some choices this week. And what it’s said is that his conduct is unacceptable, drinking and driving is unacceptable, smoking a crack pipe and lying about it is unacceptable, hanging out whit gangs is unacceptable, using foul language in front of the mayor’s office with the whole world watching in unacceptable. He has defined what, so far, is the bottom of the barrel, in terms of how elected officials should act.”

And it was during that vote today that the Mayor seemed a lot different, a much more subdued Mayor. He actually said that he understood what the council was taking the actions they were but he’ll have to take action of his own.

Rob Ford: “If it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers and arm and a leg which obviously it’s going to, I would have done the same thing. If I would have had a Mayor acting the way I’ve conducted myself I would have done the exact same thing. I’m not mad at anybody, I take full responsibility fortunately and I think anyone in my situation like some people on council that go into some trouble they get legal advice and they had to go to court to defend themselves well I have to do that.”

And it appears that’s how the week ends with the Ford brothers saying that they will challenge the vote today. But, I’m not sure on what grounds they’re able to challenge council’s will. But we find out now that the Mayor is with significantly reduced powers and more to come on Monday.