Rob Ford ordered removed as Toronto mayor in conflict ruling
No word on whether Ford will appeal, but Ontario judge doesn't bar him from running again
An Ontario judge ordered today that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford be relieved of his duties as the city's chief magistrate after it was found he violated conflict of interest rules.
Ford violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act by speaking and participating in a council vote regarding a financial penalty he was ordered to pay after he was found to have violated council's code of conduct by soliciting donations to his football charity using city materials, Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles T. Hackland said in a ruling released Monday.
The ruling takes effect in 14 days because Hackland said he recognized the decision "will necessitate administrative changes in the City of Toronto."
By law, Hackland could have barred Ford from running again for office for a period of up to seven years.
However, the judge did not place any such restrictions on his ruling "beyond the current term." Council would either have to vote to appoint someone to the mayor's office to serve until the 2014 municipal election or vote to hold a byelection for the office of mayor.
Ford can now apply to stay the judgment. If successful, he could remain as mayor until an appeal process is exhausted.
A three-judge panel in Ontario divisional court would hear the appeal if Ford chooses to file it.
Ford should play a leading role in ensuring integrity in municipal government, Hackland wrote. In light of that, "it is difficult to accept an error in judgment defence based essentially on a stubborn sense of entitlement (concerning his football foundation) and a dismissive and confrontational attitude to the integrity commissioner and the -council- code of conduct," the ruling said.
"In my opinion, the respondent's actions were characterized by ignorance of the law and a lack of diligence in securing professional advice, amounting to wilful blindness."
Ford testified in court in September, revealing that he had never read the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act he is accused of breaking, nor the handbook given to city councillors that spells out the rules for declaring conflicts.
He told court at the time he believed he did nothing wrong, while lawyer Clayton Ruby argued Ford acted in bad faith by not familiarizing himself with the city's conflict of interest rules.
The case stems from a legal challenge lodged by Toronto resident Paul Magder, who complained about a Feb. 7 vote that Ford participated in at council.
The vote absolved Ford from having to comply with a directive from council and the city’s integrity commissioner, Janet Leiper, in August 2010 to pay back $3,150 in donations that corporate and lobbyist donors had given to the Rob Ford Football Foundation when he was a city councillor.
Leiper found in 2010 that Ford had violated council's code of conduct when he used city letterhead to solicit donations for the foundation and recommended he pay back the money out of his own pocket.
Ford had repeatedly refused to repay the money, which resulted in the matter coming back to council in February this year.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/11/25/toronto-ford-conflict-case-decision-release.html
Rob Ford was targeted by leftists because he gets things done.
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:oh this is really important stuff. thread deserves to be stickied for sure
actually no. i think we should sticky the threads about why new york is great/bad and the one about john christy's new book first
e: of someone else's money lol
Edited by littlegreenpills ()
littlegreenpills posted:hasn't this lawsuit cost a hell of a lot of taxpayer's money for a conflict of interest issue involving like $3000
e: of someone else's money lol
i think that there is a certain kind of cosmopolitan elite in toronto's downtown who are deeply embarrassed that their city elected rob ford and will basically do whatever to kick him out and replace him by a liberal party hack.
littlegreenpills posted:hasn't this lawsuit cost a hell of a lot of taxpayer's money for a conflict of interest issue involving like $3000
e: of someone else's money lol
The big thing is that Ford just didn't give a fuck about the ethics laws involved in his position. Hackland basically said in his report that the conflict of interest violation was trivial but because of Ford's arrogance and his unwillingness to educate and follow the rules that he shouldn't be they mayor of t-dot
aerdil posted:yes please post more news about your podunk canadian towns as if they're real cities
don't hate, participate.
rob ford is an owner of some car lots that became mayor by being as angry and belligerent about "waste" as possible. like my right-wing family members were excited because he'd cancel free zoo passes for members of city council. when elected he asked for a report that would have eliminated all functions of government that were not explicitly required by law or custom and then contract out most of the rest. this spawned a large activist movement that was actually able to stop most of the cuts from going through and which broke ford's majority on council. ford also conceded tax increases and basically became a lame duck, and this made him really angry and now he just embarrasses people all day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8EpSdyB0zY#t=01m04s
tentativelurkeraccount posted:thats cute that you call yourself a 'leading economist' . . .
i prefer the term "superstar economist"
getfiscal posted:or "policy rock star"
The wonky-tonk news
AmericanNazbro posted:do you have a conadian tea party sect? let's start one under the auspices of national bolshevism #HellYeahBadAss
well canada's national government is filled with far-right people although harper has basically forced them into a consensus where he protects the resource extraction and finance industries and in exchange they have to tolerate boring centrist governance.
getfiscal posted:aerdil posted:
yes please post more news about your podunk canadian towns as if they're real cities
don't hate, participate.
rob ford is an owner of some car lots that became mayor by being as angry and belligerent about "waste" as possible. like my right-wing family members were excited because he'd cancel free zoo passes for members of city council. when elected he asked for a report that would have eliminated all functions of government that were not explicitly required by law or custom and then contract out most of the rest. this spawned a large activist movement that was actually able to stop most of the cuts from going through and which broke ford's majority on council. ford also conceded tax increases and basically became a lame duck, and this made him really angry and now he just embarrasses people all day.
The problem is that any engaging human drama here is smothered by that immutable dullness that Canadians bring to anything.
There’s a reason why there are no great Canadian authors. I mean this is your country’s largest most dynamic cities and there are allegations of misusing zoo passes and stuff. I know Canadians take a perverse pride in the smallness of their affairs but to me it just seems like the Last Man of nations.
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:yeah quebec should be its own country puerto rico should be its own country hawaii should be its own country. because the answe to the worlds problems is more relatively well off USAian / Bilderburg puppet nations. that would be a huge act of justice. lol.
good point. South Sudan and Timor Lesta ftw
tentativelurkeraccount posted:thats cute that you call yourself a 'leading economist' . . .
omg. Donald. Don Drummond. OF COURSE
I've had the truth right in front of me all this time!!!!!
there's a whole hardcore capitalist part of my mind, my dark other self, who has piles of respect for Mark Carney and his real talk as he hmanned the helm of the economy and is sad yo see him get sniped like that. I mean death to capital but while the system still exists we may as well have a really /good/ rich white guy filling the figural role of chief decision maker wrt a percentage of interest Canadian superbanks charge each other. when he said that the number was moving up a quarter of a percent I said to myself, golly, if only I was a suave investment banker who made hundreds of thousands of dollars and did coke off of the heaving breasts of my four sex drenched daughters, boy. Then I'd really have made it. If only my suit had that many pinstripes... I love capitalism...
Cycloneboy posted:why is the fact that the mayor is overweight relevant? could this be... fatphobia??
That would be terrible if this could be that, and I for one, hope that this could not be that.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:getfiscal posted:aerdil posted:
yes please post more news about your podunk canadian towns as if they're real cities
don't hate, participate.
rob ford is an owner of some car lots that became mayor by being as angry and belligerent about "waste" as possible. like my right-wing family members were excited because he'd cancel free zoo passes for members of city council. when elected he asked for a report that would have eliminated all functions of government that were not explicitly required by law or custom and then contract out most of the rest. this spawned a large activist movement that was actually able to stop most of the cuts from going through and which broke ford's majority on council. ford also conceded tax increases and basically became a lame duck, and this made him really angry and now he just embarrasses people all day.The problem is that any engaging human drama here is smothered by that immutable dullness that Canadians bring to anything.
There’s a reason why there are no great Canadian authors. I mean this is your country’s largest most dynamic cities and there are allegations of misusing zoo passes and stuff. I know Canadians take a perverse pride in the smallness of their affairs but to me it just seems like the Last Man of nations.
it's all true. our only defining characteristic from day one is that we Aren't America. You can find books of letters from the early 1800s that are by old British aristocrats in Upper Canada that boil down to that. It's not new. We stumbled on to our quasi independence as a matter of bookkeeping in the early 20th c and it was only due to the bloody mindedness of some Quebecois that we even have a flag or our own constitution or that we no longer can appeal supreme court decisions to London. If the French had had their own little indepedeny enclave there'd have been much less pressure yo roll back the extents of the de jure British Empire and we'd still be having crumpets. this is a nation of permanent subjects too meek to assert the merest thing... and the citizens of Quebec.
Edited by angelbutt_dollface ()
Victoria
NDP 37.7%
Green 34.1%
Conservative 14.3%
Liberal 12.8%
Calgary-Centre
Conservative 36.9%
Liberal 32.7%
Green 25.6%
NDP 3.8%
Durham
Conservative 50.7%
NDP 26.3%
Liberal 17.3%
Green 4.1%
