Rob Ford says he’s sorry for racial slurs
Former mayor makes ‘heartfelt apology’
TORONTO
Rob Ford said on Tuesday that he is “deeply ashamed” of himself for using ethnic slurs during his term as mayor of Toronto.
It was the latest in a litany of apologies that punctuated Ford’s turbulent years in political office — and according to his staff, he’s getting tired of saying he’s sorry.
“I guess at some point, he becomes concerned that apologizing for the same thing repeatedly demeans the apology,” said Ford’s executive assistant, Dan Jacobs.
“He wants people to know that he means what he’s saying, so that’s why he doesn’t want to keep saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ ”
Ford, now a city councillor, was ordered to make the apology by the integrity commissioner, who found that his racist remarks last year violated the city’s code of conduct.
“Mr. Mayor, members of council, I’m deeply ashamed of what I said and I recognize that they bring discredit to both myself and council as a whole,” Ford said in city council chambers on Tuesday morning.
“I wish to offer my heartfelt apology for my words and my actions.”
The integrity commissioner’s report was sparked by a 2014 complaint from Canadian-Ethiopian journalist Samuel Getachew, who took issue with two instances in which the then-mayor used racial epithets.
Ford called a taxi driver a “racial slur” and used “mocking language sounds” in 2012, integrity commissioner Valerie Jepson wrote. And in 2014, the Toronto Star obtained a recording in which Ford could be heard making racial comments.
Following Tuesday’s apology, Getachew approached Ford to shake his hand.
“I said, ‘Hi, this is Samuel and I wish you well and I accept what you just said.’ ” But Getachew claims that Ford realized who he was and pushed his hand away.
Ford denied pushing Getachew’s hand away.
“I don’t know why people make up stories. I said ‘hi,’ and that was it,” he told reporters at city hall. “Look at the tapes and you’ll see, that’s just not true.”
Getachew also claims that Ford’s office gave him incorrect information on when the councillor would be apologizing. He said he had invited a number of offended Jewish and Ethiopian community leaders to hear Ford’s apology, but they missed it because Dan Jacobs led him to believe the speech was occurring at 2 p.m., rather than the actual 10 a.m. start.
Jacobs said that is not true: “I made a deliberate point of not giving a specific time because we didn’t have a specific time.
Bernie Farber, the former chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, confirmed that Getachew invited him to the apology. Farber said he was told to be there between 2 and 4 p.m. But he said Getachew made no mention of Jacobs and instead said his information was coming from other city councillors.
Farber wouldn’t have made it anyway, because he was ill Tuesday.
Nonetheless, he called the apology “very important.”
“The lesson it teaches in the long run ... is that racist bullies get caught,” Farber said.