Mayor Rob Ford has been punted from office, just days short of celebrating his second anniversary of being sworn in.
Judge Charles Hackland’s eagerly awaited decision in a conflict of interest case was handed down at 10 a.m. Monday at a downtown courthouse.
About right – “T.O.’s left doing via the courts what they couldn’t do at the ballot box.”
Related: Your tax dollars at worx.
@katewerk And you’ll notice that @cbccommunity has 4 staff members to produce this crap cbc.sh/idS0J8J
— Dean Skoreyko (@bcbluecon) November 26, 2012
Can he still run for re-election?
So let’s see if I have this straight. The good folks of Ontario voted in McGuinty and he saddled them with huge debt, numerous green fraud projects, and so forth.
Now Torontonians have in effect hounded Ford out of office.
Where is the logic in all of this?
Ford had been accused of violating council’s conflict guidelines after he spoke to and voted on whether to accept an integrity commissioner’s report critical of how he raised money for his football charity last February.
Good going Ford. Just make it dead easy for them.
Admittedly, I know next to nothing about this case, but I don’t care about political left and right when it comes to breaking rules/laws. If the case against Rob Ford is legit, then he deserves to be punted. No doubt Ford was better than Miller, but here’s hoping Toronto can find someone even better than Ford.
It’s really a great victory for the rule of law.
A charity, no personal gain?
My impression Ford is that he is the stereotypical corrupt corpulent politician. Don’t defend him just because he is not a lefty.
LOL! An opinion of the presiding judge from http://www.ottawamenscentre.com/judges/Justice_Charles_T_Hackland.htm
” Justice Charles T. Hackland
May 9, 2008
The Honourable Charles T. Hackland is the Regional Senior Judge of the Ottawa Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Justice Charles (chuck) Hackalnd received a B.A. in 1972 from the University of Ottawa and graduated from the University of Ottawa Law School in 1975, called to the bar in 1978.
Chuck was about in the top one third of the class, that is, he was not exactly an outstanding student at law school in Ottawa.
People who knew him after law school describe him as “as dull as ditchwater”, ” a wallpaper personality”.
After law school, he got a job in a large well known law firm, moved on with two other large well respected law firms.
He managed to keep his nose clean and after 23 years in law, was appointed a judge in 2003..
He had then and has now, what is called a “wall paper” personality, more commonly described as “arshole”.
He tends to think a lot of himself, an opinion that is not shared by those who know hi
Although he has only been a judge about 6 years, he has attracted a string of complaints from litigants for the usual reasons of making biased decisions.
He is not know for having an open mind and appears to operate under peer pressure from other judges who may not hold the title of “Regional Senior Judge” but whom seem to have an uncanny ability to make important decisions.
If you have any interesting cases you would like to tell us about, please email info@ottawamenscentre.com ”
Dirty bastich, using his office to raise money for poor kids football equipment…and then having the audacity to defend himself.
If I was a tax paying citizen of Toronto, and there cannot be that many of those, I would leave so fast…. oh wait. I already did. Born there, lived there, moved and never going back. Anyone who stays in Toronto deserves the disfunctional union run leftist utopia that it has become and deserves to have his wallet looted.
Maybe he should have read the booklet that city staff gave him. Numbskull.
Canuck guy: “My impression Ford is that he is the stereotypical corrupt corpulent politician. Don’t defend him just because he is not a lefty.”
No one has accused Ford of being corrupt; this wasn’t for any personal gain. The bozo had ample opportunity to avoid this but he’s either too pig headed and/or stupid. I believe he even admitted openly that he had not read the conflict of interest guidelines prepared for members of Council.
In other words, he’s the author of his own misfortune.
I’ll say one thing about Rob Ford…he’s no Joe Fontana.
Ooops. Next time remember that you can’t get away with that crap unless you’re a Librano. If Ford couldn’t figure that out then he deserved to be punted from office.
Can we do the same with Harper?
I don’t care about Ford, Harper is the real enemy.
No, separatiste…..Quebec parasites are the real enemy. Parasites like you.
So, he spoke about a report, and then voted on it, which I take it is a conflict of interest of some kind.
And the rest of the council voted with him on it, the same council that pledged to stop him at every turn at the start of his term? I guess his overwhelming power *forced* to vote lockstep with him on this issue? If he hadn’t talked before the vote I’m sure they all would have voted against the report right?
Ford has always struck me as a brash, loudspoken oaf who’s almost proud of his ignorance at times. Question him on it and he just falls into Attack! mode. He flat-out admitted he’d never read the conflict-of-interest act. That’s just a staggering admission of incompetence.
I can’t get too worked up over his removal. He’s not a rising star to which conservatives should attach themselves; he’s a shooting star who has now burned up in the atmosphere, his political usefulness spent.
D*mnit. Ford is toast. Toronto will descend once again into the control of the leftists who will continue defict spending to appease (their) activists.
Unfortunately, Ford was the author of his own misfortune here – the rules were quite explicit. So the irony will be that Torontonians will have to pay for millions in spurious, questionable – but legal – spending, all because of a $3,000 f*up.
he’s a shooting star who has now burned up in the atmosphere, his political usefulness spent.
Great line! I’ll give Ford some credit but he seems a lot like Christie. Cool until the novelty wears off.
Quebecois NDP separatiste
Even though you come by your inferiority complex honestly as Quebecois cultural ghetto baggage, you don’t have to ask permission from the rest of Canada to be xenophobic, fascist, bigoted or parasitic. It just comes with the territory.
The worst of this is that Toronto will likely plummet right back into the wild spending days of old. Well done Mr Ford.
Here is a video of Quebecoise Bloc/NDP Dipshitiste in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OzIMHowtL8
// here’s hoping Toronto can find someone even better than Ford //
Any member of the Argos would do
I was informed by my spouse that Mayor Ford had been removed from office. Glancing at the hard fall of snow in the driveway previously, I was not in the best mood. I should not have exclaimed like this but will repeat.
They’ve got him- the swines!
The door is now open for wife of the late rub’n’tug patron…..just what Toronto needs and deserves.
The conflict of interest wasn’t over soliciting the $3,000-worth of donations on city letterhead etc. it was over joining the debate about the issue and voting on the motion when he, supposedly, should have recused himself from the debate and the vote. So every commenter here who said it was over the $3,000 and ‘corruption’ should recuse themselves from this thread.
We now know Leftist activist lawfare works. When it ends up biting a politician you know and voted for, remember it started with Ford.
Can he still run for re-election?
In principle, yes—just not in the by-election for mayor. In 2014 he can have a go at running again.
In practice? This was a coup d’etat run by the people who plan to crown Olivia Chow queen of Toronto and vicar of Jack Layton (may he burn in hell for all eternity) on earth. Rulers overthrown in coups d’etat rarely get second chances. Rob Ford’s career in Toronto politics is over.
Just thank heaven they let him live to fight another day (perhaps in Ottawa). Ford was the first mayor of Toronto in living memory who actually took the side of the people against the parasites—which made him the first mayor at serious risk of assassination. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chow’s plan B was to find a “lone nut” off his meds to do her dirty work for her.
Don’t we know another politician who literally got away with murder, using his car on a cyclist on Bloor St.?
Gee, what party was that guy with again?
Lesson learned, you need to be purer than the wind driven snow if you want to be a Conservative.
Perhaps on appeal a judge will decide that an ELECTION is slightly more important than the infinitesimal details of a $3000.00 charity donation. Yeah, if the guy is an NDPee-er or a Liberal it will be, but not a Conservative.
Anybody know what a by-election is worth these days? Maybe twenty/thirty million bucks to arrange, plus advertising by the candidates? Would it be ok if the people of Ontario sent the bill for it to Judge Charles Hackland’s office?
Oh well, its only Toronto. May they all enjoy the continued decay of their infrastructure and ever-increasing crime rate. Yonge St. is already all dollar stores and two-bit felafel joints, with a little work the NDPee should be able to shutter the whole place.
Go Mississauga!
Can we do the same with Harper?
I don’t care about Ford, Harper is the real enemy.
Posted by: Quebecois NDP separatiste at November 26, 2012 11:40 AM
Sure, Away la, p’tit NDPiste.
Just trot your arse down to your local surete and file your complaint.
Bottom line:
“It’s really a great victory for the rule of law.”
Ford voted for himself in a conflict of interest hearing. When called on it, he said he hadn’t bothered to read the rules. When having the rules explained to him, he tried to argue that he interpreted them differently, which is basically impossible unless you are a completely twisted moron of the lowest order.
And this, in a long line of incidents where he was caught abusing his office. If the judge hadn’t applied the law, it would have made a mockery of our already mockable system.
.
If other leaders “get away” with stuff. The stupidest possible reasoning is that you have to let everybody get away with everything.
Come on guys. Try and be remotely reasonable.
Perhaps on appeal a judge will decide that an ELECTION is slightly more important than the infinitesimal details of a $3000.00 charity donation.
Yeah, what is the rule of law against The Mob?
I think this is pretty outrageous. I guess I was mistaken and thought that even if the ruling went against him he could remain in office, but might be subject to removal. The episode is pretty trivial and relates to a charity initiative. There seems to be a pattern of attempting to bring court cases against Conservative politicians as a way of hounding them out of office. Same thing happened to Larry O’Brien in Ottawa, although he won the case as I recall . . . but the fact that there was a major case to be dealt with was simply harassment.
“Can we do the same with Harper?” I am sure the left would if they could. Is that not what the phony robocall issue is about?
I’m not sure if Ford is crooked or not. It’s Toronto, who cares but why does it occur to me that if little Trudeau was sponsoring a kid’s football team, the response to the same thing would be entirely different.
So Qweebec NDP Terrorist has the audacity to fake outrage over Ford? That’s pretty rich coming from somewone who hails from North America’s last Mafia stronghold!
I agree that it’s the left and in particular, the unions, against Ford, and with the agenda of getting Olivia Chow in as mayor. She’ll be another Miller, a buddy of the unions.
Ford confronted the legacy of Toronto Mayors, which was to entrench Toronto taxpayers firmly in the control of the Public Service unions. The high costs of living in Toronto and the problems with city services are due to: the unions.
Toronto unions enable transit ticket takers, that’s just the guy taking your subway ticket, to earn over 100,000 a year. Toronto Unions mean that 80% of transit income goes to wages, benefits and pensions, with zilch left over for maintenance.
Ford got the TTC made essential so they can’t hold riders hostage and strike; he’s gotten garbage pick up privatized, he’s saved millions and provided better services.
To kick out a mayor for such a trivial, and yes, it’s trivial, act has to fall within a political agenda.
Ford spoke against a report critical of how he raised money for his football charity. Sure, he should have recused himself from the vote, but, he would have seen his comments as a defense of his actions not a conflict of interest. Remember, he wasn’t voting FOR money which would be a clear conflict. He was voting on a report which he, presumably, could or could not, agree with.
And note, no-one in the Toronto City Council Chamber – not the other Councillors who insist they know all about The Rules, and not the legal staff who sit at the front table during every session and who must know The Rules and are there to guide councillors on their votes – no-one spoke out and said that Ford should not, legally, vote. Why not?
Ford will, hopefully, appeal the ruling.
I seem to remember a certain Toronto council member caught naked in a whorehouse in 1996. Funny that he wasn’t asked to give up his office.
Once Ford cleans out his desk I guess the city council can go about it’s normal routine of fleecing the tax payers and padding their own pensions.
To those who have said that the left can not stand loosing a municipal position to a conservative, as the local soviet (council) is the basic building block for the Marxist Nirvana, and will do anything to dig up or manufacture wrong doing to eliminate conservatives, you are right. That being said, the rules are very clear, if you even smell that you might have or could be accused of a pecuniary interest, you must leave the chamber and not vote in the question.
Besides, only Liberals and NDPs get away with this, sometimes for ever and sometimes for a while.
The full text of the Justice’s decision is here:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/26/toronto-mayor-rob-ford-removed-from-office-full-text-of-justice-charles-hacklands-verdict/
and its a good read. Basically, Ford got caught on a badly written law and his own legal naivete.
The Justice found no corruption, but admits he is tied by the wording of the relevant statutes. A case of “no good deed goes unpunished”, which speaks more to the complainant then the contravention.
The Justice allowed hime a little judicial activism – wish they’s quit it:
“The MCIA is important legislation. It seeks to uphold a fundamental premise of our governmental regime. Those who are elected and, as a result, take part in the decision-making processes of government, should act, and be seen to act, in the public interest. This is not about acting dishonestly or for personal gain; it concerns transparency and the certainty that decisions are made by people who will not be influenced by any personal pecuniary interest in the matter at hand. It invokes the issue of whether we can be confident in the actions and decisions of those we elect to govern. The suggestion of a conflict runs to the core of the process of governmental decision-making. It challenges the integrity of the process.”
Then interpreted the stature pretty much literally.
Ken (Kulak), you are right about the pecuniary interest, but the council vote wasn’t about obtaining money. It was about accepting or not accepting a report critical of how Ford got money for his football charity.
As I said, Ford would see his vote as rejecting the criticism of the report.
And again, if the other Councillors, who also voted against accept the report, all know The Rules, then why didn’t they object in Chamber, against Ford’s vote? Why didn’t the Chair, who is always very particular about the rules of the Chamber, why didn’t she (usually Nunziata) tell Ford he couldn’t vote? And why didn’t the legal staff, who sit right below the Chairman’s table, tell Ford that he couldn’t vote?
The left are a dominant group in the Toronto Council; it’s quite something to listen to their sophistry when they give their endless speeches, and to their ignorance of the law and the Rules.
I recall Mayor Miller, insisting that the TTC MUST be allowed to strike, because the UN Charter of Rights says that ‘being allowed to strike is a human right’.
No, it doesn’t. No-one stopped Miller from declaring this as fact. First, the UN Charter isn’t the law of Canada. And second, the Charter says nothing about a ‘right to strike’. It does insist on a ‘right to work’, and a transit strike would, ah, prevent people from getting to work. That didn’t bother Miller. It took Ford to raise the issue again and get it dealt with.
ET, well said, especially the third paragraph. Our municipal administrator always made sure to inform councilors to recuse themselves if it might be considered that they might have a conflict of interest.
I wonder who this private citizen is who filed the complaint and who paid the high profile lawyer?
The fact that nobody called Ford on it at the time would mean the entire council was OK with Ford’s participation. They are jointly culpable. Don’t let the skanx get away with this.
I expect nothing less than the remorseless dogging by GTA media in finding scandal to pin on the next left wing mayor – yah right.
The Media scum who dogged Ford for the last two years (searching for scandal and manufacturing it when they found none) simply because he was a conservative, are nothing but and extension of urban kleptocratic cabal which feed from patronage/entitlement/public subsidy raiding. If I’d have been their target like Ford was I�d laid a law suit a week against them.
The savage continued attacks against Ford were meant to chill any other right of center candidate away from the mayor’s office. The media people who seer and spit when they say Ford’s or Harper�s name are the pathologically diabolical leftist public opinion manipulators who have no moral or ethical compass – this is also a constant trait in their political leaders who almost without exception rationalize true evil agendas with their relativist morality and situational ethics.- Leftist activism is a playground for soulless sociopaths. Maybe the next Klepto-left Mayor of Hogtown will finally sink it into a fiscal abyss and it will become another decaying relic of klepto-socialism, just like the rust belt McGuinty made of the province.
People are slow to learn and it will take a socialist manufactured disaster to make them realize they should have put a stake in socialism 100 years ago when it frst started stealing their paychecks.
Yep, I’ve read it Skip. Interestingly enough, he could also file a motion to the appeals court based on the judges motion and council law itself being vague and undefined.
Scary to watch the media party support joe Fontana while attacking Rob Ford . Their coverage does appear fair and balanced.
Rotten leftards getting their way again. But it’s good in a way as it polarizes the public and the right will start pushing back aggressively. Anyone notice that 50 of 57 States have started petitions for seceding from the Union?
The ball is rolling. Texas is the most aggressive & even has a candidate for the next governorship who will get them out.
Push back, people. It’s the only way to end this bull$h1t
What is also interesting, is why was Ford allowed to vote IF, IF, it was against the law?
After all, Councillors are not supposed to be conversant with legal details. That’s why there is both a Chair AND legal staff at all Council Meetings. Both Councillors and the Chair frequently call on the legal staff to check on the legality of Motion content and Council activities.
Furthermore, why did the Chair allow Ford to vote? At Toronto City Council, if a Councillor does not vote on a Motion, the staff actually call out their name: ‘Councillor X, could I have your vote please’…They’ll do it multiple times until that individual has voted.
If Ford had not voted, the staff would have called his name, repeatedly, asking him to vote.
UNLESS, the Chair and the legal staff FIRST said that he was not allowed to vote.
So, why did the other Councillors not object to his vote? Why didn’t the Chair object? Why didn’t the staff and the lawyers sitting at their front table object?
Fay, yes, that’s a good point. The media supported Joe Fontana, who used taxpayer money to fund part of his son’s wedding.
Occam, yes, the Toronto media have been vicious and savage against Ford. The Toronto Star and the CBC in particular have focused, maliciously, against him.
Ford, by the way, has been the only Toronto City Councillor who never, ever, took a penny of his ‘office allotment’. Other councillors have run up bills, for everything from meals to taxis to hosting local meetings, in the tens of thousands. Ford, over his entire time at City Hall, has never, ever, charged a penny. Zero.
NOT the same guy as the Rob Ford who shot Jesse James in the back, I take it.
Ford was stupid. He played right into the hands of his enemies on the left. It was dumb to ignore the city’s integrity commissioner and his defence that he never read the rules about conflict of interest was laughable. It was his job to read and to know those rules.
The man fashions himself as a populist but he is arrogant. He wants to march to his own drummer and the rules be damned. You can only do that for so long.