Signs of the poisonous Rob Ford effect
Poopy jokes and a frantic scrum at city hall bathroom
To borrow from the latenight host Jimmy Kimmel, who would have thought Rob Ford could pull yet another nugget from his bag of crazy, let alone that he is remarkably fluent in Jamaican patois?
But hey, as Kimmel noted rather wonderingly the other night, “When you’re the best, that’s what you do.”
I am trying to imagine what Kimmel might do with the next instalment of footage that may come his way, video of the Chief Bumbaclot being frantically scrummed as he abruptly left a city executive committee meeting Wednesday to … go to the bathroom.
Bumbaclot is rude Jamaican slang for a rag used to wipe one’s nether quarters; Ford used it several times, apparently in reference to Toronto police who were for a time tailing him and his alleged drug-dealing pal Sandro Lisi, in his latest surreptitiously filmed video rant this week at an Etobicoke joint called the Steak Queen.
And there he was, disappearing into the loo, a guard posted outside at the door, for such a length of time that it appeared he may have been living up to his new nickname.
“This is not perhaps our finest hour,” one of my colleagues remarked, holding up her cell to video the scene.
But that, in microcosm, is the poisonous Rob Ford effect — to lower the tone, to aggressively skim over the surface of issues big and small, to so debase any given debate or discussion that when you find yourself talking like a toddler and making a poopy joke about a grown man, it seems perfectly A-OK.
The executive committee was discussing the 2014 budget and the size of the expected tax hike upon residents.
It is a serious and important subject, and while I affect no familiarity with any form of budgeting, as my bank manager would attest, I was able to grasp the basics pretty quickly.
The budget committee had recommended a 2.25 per cent increase, but city staff said that because of funds needed for the Scarborough subway (Ford’s pet project; you may remember the chant of “Subways, subways, subways”) and the unexpected financial hit caused by the recent ice storm, an increase of 3.2 per cent was actually needed.
I thought staff were brave to say so, and were being more honest with the taxpayers of the city than most of the politicians: There ain’t no free lunch, and if Torontonians want a new subway begun and the lovely tree canopy of the city repaired, they will have to pay for it.
In the hot seat, answering questions from councillors, were Rob Rossini, the deputy city manager and chief financial officer, and city manager Joe Pennachetti.
Spare a thought for these poor suckers. Like the criminally accused, who used to receive double credit for the time they served in pretrial custody as innocent men, the staff of this city always do hard time. Every hour in committee with this lot surely feels like 12.
Again and again, unfailingly polite and patient, even good-humoured, Messrs. Rossini and Pennachetti answered the same questions in plain language. But the collective pool of knowledge in that room was so shallow you could have broken the world record for stone-skipping (51 consecutive skips apparently) across its flat surface.
Once, Rossini actually laid out in detail the nuts and bolts; the very next question revealed the councillor doing the asking had not listened to a single word.
Throughout, Ford sat in his chair, arms usually crossed across his belly; I don’t know how he does it, but he even manages to sit belligerently.
When his turn came to question, he asked about management/staff ratios in various departments, questioning new hires where some were recommended.
Once, when Pennachetti didn’t have the answer at his fingertips — he was dealing with the budget on a macro level, not in its minute detail — Ford upbraided him, snapping, “Mr. City Manager, you should have these numbers in front of you.”
When it came time to speak, Ford called it “the worst budget that I’ve ever seen,” said councillors could blame the ice storm or the province but “we’re the ones to blame,” and concluded with this: “It’s just the most disrespectful thing you could do to the hard-working taxpayers out there.”
In between those moments, at the committee lunch break, Ford swept out into the hall with his staff running interference, picked up the vast press scrum that is once again attaching itself to him, and mumbled that he was “the only one fighting for the taxpayer.”
Still later in the day, he addressed the issue which had drawn the crowds to the room — his bumbaclot rant.
Essentially, what he said was that he’s entitled to a private life, that his appearance at the Steak Queen was on his own time, “completely a private matter,” that it doesn’t interfere with his tireless work and that despite the minor setback of his night out — complete with drinks, combative airpunching, cussing of the police and Chief Bill Blair, and, of course, Ford’s usual splendidly chosen friends, one of whom filmed and promptly sold him out — he is “working hard to improve my health and my well-being.”
Many years ago, when it seemed that Canada was doomed to be run forever by the Liberals, my late father, a lifelong Tory voter, used to rue the lack of a decent tradition of political assassination in this country.
He was kidding, of course, as am I when I say that at long last, I am beginning to feel his pain.