While both Ford boys are the 1% coming from and having mega bucks and they are both buffoons and bullies to the nth degree, neither has been charged let alone found guilty of anything illegal. Removing his powers as Mayor is illegal. Just becuz he's an arsehole with no impulse control at all in what he says or does not legally allow council to remove his powers he got in a legal election.
Were it only as easy as council voting him out then many other elected officials worldwide in democratic countries would find themselves arse over teakettle on the lawn of city hall. This is a dangerous precedent that has been set and I believe wholly illegal. The carnival going on at City Hall knows no end but sadly Ford and bro were legally elected and only another election will oust them...if in fact that does happen..and it may not. Torontonians were so fed up with previous Mayors spending the city into debt they'd have voted for a gerbil if it meant they got a buck off their tax bill and their garbage picked up on time. The antics of Rob Ford and his brother reflect on them, not the City of Toronto.
Rick Mercer rant - There really is very little left to say about Rob Ford. The truth is that man is so messed up, if he didn't have family and money, he would probably be on the streets barking at parking meters. He's this close to biting the heads off live chickens on the Latin America freak show circuit. But no, of course, instead he is the mayor of Canada's largest city and like another man, whose name escapes me at the moment but recorded a song called “Gangnam Style,” he is temporarily an international sensation.
So, is he bad for Toronto’s reputation on the world stage? Not really, if anything he makes us more interesting. And let’s face it, Toronto could use the help. So why is he so popular? Well number one, he's obviously entertaining. He's gone from being a car crash, to a ten car pile-up, to a scene in a disaster movie where space junk flies out of the sky, crashes into an overpass, it tumbles over, crushes a bus load of singing nuns. Huge laughs.
The other reason he’s so popular, number two, his agenda. What about all those people in Ford Nation who say they will vote for him tomorrow? What they are saying loud and clear, and what everyone on the left should pay attention to, is this: They are saying, we would rather have a guy on crack, than a mayor who will raise our taxes. They are saying, we don't care if he drives his escalade drunk through the city we care that he wants to privatize garbage collection. They are saying, we will vote for a gerbil if we get a dollar back.
Rob Ford's popularity has nothing to do with the man himself – he is a circus act – but his politics are very real. And they should not be written off just because he's about to be.