Rob Ford served as mayor of Toronto, Ontario, Canada for one term from December 1, 2010, until November 30, 2014, being elected in 2010. As a Conservative-leaning mayor, his term was a period of conflict with the rest of Toronto City Council over budget spending, traffic, transit, cycling and other issues. During his term as mayor, he was embroiled in a scandal over his drug and alcohol abuse, leading Council to remove some of his powers as mayor. The drug scandal created headlines nationally and internationally as Ford denied his abuse until a video was found of him smoking crack cocaine. Ford then took a two-month leave of absence for rehabilitation. He declined to run again for mayor for a second term due to a cancer diagnosis.
Overview Rob Ford was elected mayor with 383,501 votes (47%) over George Smitherman's 289,832 (35.6%) and Joe Pantalone with 95,482 (11.7%). The voter turnout was around 52% of registered voters, the highest in Toronto's post-amalgamation history. Ward-by-ward electoral results showed that Ford had won all of the former pre-amalgamation suburbs, while Smitherman topped districts in the pre-amalgamation Toronto districts. Ford also received 80,000 votes from the "Downtown 13" wards, or 20% of his total votes.
After the election, Ford had outgoing councillor Case Ootes, a former City of Toronto budget chief, head the "transition team." From his campaign team, Ford named Nick Kouvalis as his chief of staff; Mark Towhey, who had drafted his campaign platform, as his policy advisor; and Adrienne Batra, his communications advisor, as press secretary. Councillor Doug Holyday, who had helped elect Doug Ford Sr., was named deputy mayor. For the executive committee of City Council, Ford named councillors who had endorsed him in his campaign. For the inauguration ceremony at the first meeting of the new council, Ford had television commentator Don Cherry introduce him and put the chain of office on him. Cherry garnered some controversy with his remarks. Cherry described how Ford had reversed a mistake of city staff cutting down a tree of a Toronto property owner for no good reason and then billing the property owner, who suffered from Alzheimer's. Cherry added "Put that in your pipe you left-wing kooks" and, in regards to the pink suit he was wearing, "I'm wearing pinko for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything, I thought I'd get it in."
During his term as mayor, Ford was involved in several publicized incidents while driving, including reading while driving on the Gardiner Expressway, and talking on his cell phone while driving. In another driving incident, Ford passed the rear door of a streetcar, while the front door was open, leading to "an exchange of words with the streetcar operator." After the August 2012 incident of reading while driving, Ford was criticized by the media, other mayors and safety advocates. The Toronto Police and Rob's brother Doug Ford both urged him to hire a driver. As mayor, Ford was entitled to a personal driver and car paid for by the city, but Ford repeatedly turned down the benefit on the grounds that he did not want taxpayers to pay for the extra cost. Similarly, while a councillor, Ford had disagreed with the city giving councillors free TTC passes and fought for the eventual repeal of the perk on the same basis.
Mayor Ford was the focus of further controversy when, according to a report in the Toronto Star, he personally asked city officials to approve drainage and road repairs outside the Deco Labels and Tags headquarters building before its 50th anniversary party in August 2012. Critics such as Councillor Adam Vaughan stated "This is a clear-cut example of using one's office to gain preferential treatment for private interests." Ford stated that he had made thousands of such requests on behalf of homeowners and other businesses. "Someone has a pothole in front of their house, in front of their business, I go out and fix it. Just like I did for our company."
The Ombudsman for the City of Toronto, Fiona Crean, published a report in September 2012 suggesting that Mayor Ford's office had "compromised" the civic appointments process for city boards and agencies. Crean and her report was questioned by Council while Rob Ford remained silent, instead choosing to respond later on a radio talk show by stating: "When people are just going to make up stories about you, why are you even going to try to defend yourself when you know it's just a bunch of malarkey." The Ombudsman and the existence of the position itself were later criticized by Ford and became the subject of further debate. In October, Mayor Ford said he wanted to eliminate three watchdog positions: that of the Ombudsman, the Integrity Commissioner and the lobbyist registrar. "You don't need a lobbyist registry, an ombudsman and an integrity commissioner. They have 20 people; they're tripping over themselves. They're trying to make themselves look busy." All three positions are required under Ontario law and were established after the MFP computer leasing scandal inquiry.
His brother Doug has stated that Rob wrote "numerous" reference letters for criminals, including tow-truck driver and convicted murderer Douglas Sedgewick, and his occasional driver Alexander "Sandro" Lisi, accused of threatening to kill a woman.
In a November 2013 meeting of the Toronto City Council, Ford ran through the council chamber and accidentally ran over city councilmember Pam McConnell. McConnell's injuries required physiotherapy.
On April 2, 2014, Mayor Ford cast the only opposition votes for motions to honor Canadian Olympic Athletes and to name a street after the late Nelson Mandela. He later asked for a revote but was denied. He later stated that "we all make errors" and that he pushed the wrong button due to stretching his sore back, due to having hurt it lifting weights the prior Friday. His brother, Councillor Doug Ford, stated that, in reference to the Mandela motion, there was no bigger supporter of the Black community in Toronto than Mayor Ford.
Budgets At its first meeting in December 2010, council voted to cancel the annual $60 personal vehicle registration tax passed by the previous council. The tax cancellation, a campaign promise of Ford's, took effect on January 1, 2011. For the first budget, which was for 2011, the budget was balanced with no tax increases and no significant changes. The budget used a surplus from 2010 and reserve funds to avoid raising taxes. A proposed TTC fare increase was cancelled after Ford objected to it and "found" $16 million to cover their operating shortfall.
Prior to the 2012 budget, the Ford administration initiated a consultant review of the services provided by the city. The study included public consultation websites and public 'town hall' meetings. Participants were asked to group services as 'necessary', 'nice to have', etc. and asked how to expect to pay for them. Ford himself suggested that the city get out of running several venues it owns, including the Sony Centre, selling off the Toronto Zoo and closing other zoos run by the City of Toronto. Ford's team promoted a figure of over $700 million as the projected shortfall with no new taxes or cuts made. The budget as proposed by Ford included cuts to various services, including environmental programs, libraries, parks and recreation, and social services, while increasing property tax by 2%, TTC fares and user fees, including those of sports teams of city facilities. This was in contrast to Ford's election campaign, when Ford had promised to find savings at City Hall without cuts to services. Two public meetings held at City Hall turned into overnight marathons with hundreds of citizens, labour groups and special interest groups protesting the various cuts. The budget was revised at council to restore over $18 million of spending and send the administration of the Toronto Zoo and the venues for further study. Three smaller zoos were given deadlines of June 2012 to find other funding or close. Later in 2012, the increases in sports teams' user fees was postponed until 2013. In April 2012, it was found that the city was running a surplus of nearly $270 million for 2011, attributed to greater-than-expected land transfer tax revenues amid a booming real estate development market. In October 2012, Toronto Council voted to cancel plans to get expressions of interest from potential buyers of the Toronto Zoo.
In 2013, the city budget increased to $9.4 billion for operating expenses and $2.27 billion for capital projects. Unlike previous years, the budget did not use prior-year surplus monies to balance the budget; individual departmental budgets were reduced by $187 million and projected revenues increased by $251 million. The 2012 year-end surplus was used for TTC vehicle purchases and other projects not already budgeted for. As in previous years, taxes increased, including an increase of 2.0% on property taxes, 0.67% on business taxes and a 5 cent increase to TTC fares. Ford supported the budget produced by the Council budget committee, stating that "this budget improves services, lowers our debt, keeps taxes affordable and is based on sustainable spending." At the Council meeting to approve the budget, Ford surprised other members of the executive committee by first voting to freeze taxes, before supporting the 2% increase as proposed.
Labour relations As part of Ford's campaign promise to "end the gravy train", the administration spent time on consideration of staffing levels at the city. In 2011, the budget committee of council passed several recommendations to cut staff through layoffs and buyouts. In July 2011, the city offered buyout packages to 17,000 staff, depending on department approval, hoping to cut staff by 2,500 voluntarily. At the end of the period, over 1,000 Toronto staff accepted buyouts. In October 2011, the council voted 26–16 to 'contract out' garbage collection west of Yonge Street to a private contractor.
In 2012, several of the city's contracts expired with their unionized staff: inside workers, outside workers, part-time parks and recreation staff, paramedics and library staff. The first union to settle was the outside workers, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 416. Negotiations with the outside workers went to the deadline and a deal was made averting a strike or lockout. One major change was the controversial "jobs for life" clause in the bargaining agreement which stated that all permanent employees with 10 years of service or more were guaranteed a job of equal pay for equal value if theirs was contracted out. CUPE accepted a change to 15 years of service under the same provision. During the 2012 bargaining sessions, Holyday threatened to unilaterally impose the city's offer.
Transit policy During the 2010 mayoral campaign, Ford promised to make the TTC an "essential service." This would remove the TTC workers' right to strike and force collective bargaining disputes to be resolved through binding arbitration. Toronto City Council approved the designation of the TTC in January 2011 and the Government of Ontario passed The Toronto Transit Commission Labour Disputes Resolution Act in March 2011.