Doug Ford misses brother ‘like crazy’
Doug Ford said he misses his younger brother, Rob, “like crazy” during an emotional interview with CBC on Friday. “He was a young man who had his whole life ahead of him,” Ford said, adding at times he still wants to pick up the phone to call him.
Rob Ford, the controversial former Toronto mayor and city councillor died on Tuesday after battling cancer. He was 46.
In another interview, with CP24, Doug Ford said the family was grateful to Mayor John Tory for “bending over backwards” to help out with arrangements to remember the largerthan-life former mayor.
His body will lie in repose inside a closed casket at city hall for a public visitation on Monday and Tuesday.
On Wednesday, a procession begin- ning at 10:30 a.m. will wind through downtown to St. James Cathedral on Church St. for a public funeral service.
“We encourage people to come out and walk with us to the church,” said Ford said during the CBC interview. “That’s what Rob wanted. Rob was all about the people. He’s not about going in the back of a black limousine.”
The former city councillor said the funeral is an opportunity for people to celebrate and remember the man his brother was.
“Even when he was going through chemo, he had his call list in front of him,” Ford said. “What person going through chemo is calling people? Right to the end he was doing that. There’s never going to be someone like Rob again.”
When asked if he would be picking up where his brother left off, Ford said “someone has to continue carrying that mantle” as a politician for the people, but he wouldn’t say if he would try to assume that role.
“I have to sit down and talk to my family and talk about it, but we have a big group so we’re always going to be helping people,” he told LeDrew.
On Friday the Ford family posted a video tribute honouring the populist politician who served as mayor from 2010 to 2014, set to a Puff Daddy song that was itself a tribute to murdered friend the Notorious B.I.G.
The four-minute video features clips of supporters hugging Rob Ford while Faith Evans’s voice from the track I’ll Be Missing You plays.
Dan Jacobs, Rob Ford’s chief of staff, says the video tribute was requested by his family and made by local filmmaker Tharanga Ramanayake.
The video shows Ford as mayor, and while he was running for reelection, hugging supporters, talking about his track record and encouraging people to vote.
Jacobs says the Ford family wants members of the public to continue sending their own short tribute videos and photographs to robfordmemorial@gmail.com for inclusion in a montage at Wednesday’s celebration of life.