Rob Ford: Shadow mayor

T.O.’s former head honcho continues to campaign against his successor from the city council floor

There should be a video to go with this: Ford attacking Tory at council. Rob and Doug Ford hang over John Tory’s mayoralty like the giant balloons that float above a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“Mr. Mayor,” a track-suited Rob Ford often says at city council, before attacking Tory on SmartTrack, garbage outsourcing, TTC fares or another subject on which John Tory is not Rob Ford.

Few can recall a former mayor on council openly trying to undermine his successor in hopes of defeating him in four years. Doug Ford, the former councillor who replaced his ailing brother in the mayoral race and lost to Tory a year ago, has called it a “dual-mayor situation.”

It is a sideshow, but does it affect the main event, Tory’s mayoralty? He says no. Council colleagues aren’t so sure.

“It’s better than a Blue Jays ticket, almost.” COUNCILLOR JOHN CAMPBELL ON THE FORD-TORY FEUD

Tory says Ford is “negative on everything, he votes against everything, he has nothing really positive to say about what we should be trying to do in the city . . . He has little impact on my decision-making just because people who are entirely negative like that, I don’t know how you’re supposed to factor in what they actually want to do.”

A councillor, who asked not to be named for fear of damaging relations with Tory’s office, notes that Tory froze downtown councillors out of his executive committee. The mayor has also spent a lot of time on traffic blitzes, road closure meetings, the Scarborough subway and keeping the Gardiner Expressway elevated.

“He’s appealing to the suburban votes that he thinks he’s going to lose if he seems downtown-ist or urbanist,” the councillor said. Tory’s staff “are not worried about their left flank, they’re worried about their right flank, a Rob Ford comeback, so their policies are very much shaped by that.

“We’re spending $3.4 million to speed up some Gardiner reconstruction by three months. In a world of limited dollars, you wouldn’t do that unless you’re trying to protect a flank, and it’s the car drivers, the Ford people.”

Tory counters that he campaigned on fighting gridlock and the Scarborough subway, along with non-car issues such as significant spending to help reduce poverty in Toronto.

Councillor John Campbell counts Rob Ford among his Ward 4 Etobicoke Centre constituents and, at council, sits near both Ford and Tory.

“It’s better than a Blue Jays ticket, almost,” he said of his front-row seat for their verbal battles.

Campbell said Tory is a good mayor but, to his mind, the spectre of a re-election battle makes him too eager to compromise with left-leaning councillors on items such as city spending. “I think there’s definitely an impact,” he said of the Ford factor. “Tory is very cognizant of the need to not go back on his election promises, like he did with a TTC fare increase.”

That’s because Rob Ford is off to the side, making a list. With files from Jennifer Pagliaro