Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who admitted last year he’d smoked crack cocaine, is taking a leave of absence to seek help for substance abuse following reports of a new video that allegedly shows him smoking the drug again.
“I have a problem with alcohol, and the choices I have made while under the influence,” Ford, 44, said in a statement yesterday. “After taking some time to think about my own well-being, how to best serve the people of Toronto and what is in the best interests of my family, I have decided to take a leave from campaigning and from my duties as mayor to seek immediate help.”
Ford said he plans to get professional help and is “100 percent” committed to getting himself right. He still intends to be on the ballot for re-election in Canada’s biggest city in October, his lawyer Dennis Morris said in an interview broadcast on CP24 television yesterday.
The decision to step away from the campaign comes after the Globe and Mail reported yesterday that it has seen a video in which the mayor appears to be smoking from a crack cocaine pipe.
A self-described drug dealer secretly taped Ford allegedly smoking crack, the Globe and Mail said. Two reporters viewed a video of Ford taking a drag from a long copper-colored pipe and exhaling a cloud of smoke, the newspaper said. The footage is part of a package of three videos the drug dealer said was filmed about April 26 at 1:15 a.m. in Ford’s sister’s basement, and which he says he is now trying to sell, according to the newspaper’s website.
The Toronto Sun meanwhile, obtained a new audio recording of Ford ranting and swearing in a Toronto-area bar, the newspaper reported yesterday. The paper said Ford complained about his wife Renata and made “lewd” comments about mayoral candidate Karen Stintz.
‘Deeply Disappointed’
Toronto city councilors and his competitors in the mayoralty race were swift to react last night to the latest controversy in Rob Ford’s four-year term as mayor.
“I am deeply disappointed by these revelations,” John Tory, mayoral candidate, said on CP24 television last night. “For the good of the city, I call on Mayor Ford to resign.”
“The mayor’s attitude towards women comes out when he is in the throes of substance abuse,” Councilor Shelley Carroll said on the same station.
Reports first surfaced a year ago that the mayor had been caught on video smoking crack cocaine. Since then, Ford has admitted using the drug in a “drunken stupor,” with his antics providing regular punch lines on late-night U.S. comedy shows.
Police Probe
Toronto police have been investigating Ford since last May when the Toronto Star and other media reported seeing a video that appeared to show Ford inhaling from a glass pipe. Ford initially denied the video existed and said he wasn’t a crack addict.
Ford offered C$5,000 ($4,682) and a car to a gang member for the video, according to documents based on wiretaps of conversations between alleged gang members and filed in court by police as part of a drug investigation. In other documents, former staff members also said Ford sexually propositioned a female staff member and guzzled a 12-ounce bottle of vodka in two minutes before driving off in his car.
Ford denied propositioning the woman, and none of the allegations have been proven in court.
Throughout the probe and many apologies, Ford refused to step down. When Toronto’s city council voted to take away most of his budget and special powers, he compared himself to Kuwait being invaded by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. “You think American-style politics is nasty? You guys have just attacked Kuwait,” Ford told city council. “This is going to be outright war in the next election.”
The mayor then swore off alcohol and began going to the gym.
Ford was the first candidate to sign up for October’s election and has been campaigning against Olivia Chow, a former federal legislator; Tory, the former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party; and Stintz, allegedly the subject of Ford’s lewd sexual comments in the audio file obtained by the Sun.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gerrit De Vynck in Toronto at gdevynck@bloomberg.net; Katia Dmitrieva in Toronto at edmitrieva1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net Jacqueline Thorpe, Jim McDonald
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