Sunday, March 16, 2014

Mayor Rob Ford acts erratically in new video

TORONTO - Mayor Rob Ford swore, stumbled and acted erratically in the shadow of City Hall on Saturday night.

The weekend incident comes two years after Ford’s drunken St. Patrick’s Day party inside the mayor’s office and months after he swore off drinking entirely after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine while in a “drunken stupor.”

CTV Toronto aired the new video of Ford — who appears in the video wearing a suit and green beads rather than his trademark tie — on Sunday night.

The TV station claimed an unidentified Mississauga woman saw the mayor as she was driving on Bay St. by City Hall around 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

The woman’s 13-year-old son shot the video of the mayor with a group of people.

“No problem, no problem, no problem,” Ford is heard saying in the video as he tries to hail a taxi.

After being hugged by one man, Ford approaches a cab and then can be heard shouting “f---ing idiot!”

Ford, Councillor Doug Ford and the mayor’s office did not respond to media requests Sunday about the video.

When he was confronted by CTV reporters at the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday, Mayor Ford shrugged off questions about the incident.

“Give me a break,” he said.

“I’m here, right?”

Saturday night’s incident comes two years after City Hall security found the mayor “very intoxicated” and wandering around the building on the night of St. Patrick’s Day 2012 with a half-empty bottle of St-Remy French Brandy.

That night included Ford knocking a junior staffer off his feet, almost running over another staffer with his vehicle, smashing his cellphone on the wall, crying, swearing and throwing racial slurs and his business cards at a cab driver, according to sources and a police document.

After his crack-smoking confession last November, Ford swore off booze entirely, claiming that he had a “come to Jesus moment.”

He admitted to drinking again in January after video surfaced online of him inside the Steak Queen restaurant in Etobicoke where he appeared intoxicated as he swore and ranted in Jamaican patois.

Jamey Heath of the Olivia Chow campaign stressed there are “many policy reasons why it is time for a new mayor” beyond the latest video.

“It is obvious Mr. Ford needs some help,” Heath said Sunday. “But the city also needs help and the best way to do that is to defeat him.”

David Soknacki campaign spokesman Supriya Dwivedi said a new embarrassing Rob Ford video “isn’t really even news anymore, because it happens so often.”

“The people of Toronto are tired of their city and their news being dominated by Ford’s antics,” Dwivedi said. “Toronto deserves leaders who are going to offer solutions, not distractions.”

A spokesman for the John Tory campaign declined to comment.
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