Rob Ford was undeniably an unforgettable mayor
Yes, he was a terrible leader, but naming a stadium after him would be an appropriate gesture
Look, I think the late Rob Ford was a terrible, destructive, embarrassing mayor of Toronto.
I have never been shy about sharing that opinion. But I think the proposal to name a football stadium in Etobicoke after him is fine. And appropriate, really. Not everyone agrees with me.
When John Tory told his council colleagues in a letter that he hoped to honour the late mayor Ford by renaming Centennial Park Stadium in Etobicoke (in the same letter, he also suggested finding ways to honour councillors Pam McConnell and Ron Moeser, who, like Ford, died during this term of city council), a lot of people just about lost their lunch.
Online and in person Thursday, I heard from people distraught that a man so incompetent, offensive and terrible for the city would be honoured in any way whatsoever. He subjected the city to ridicule. Had backwards attitudes on bikes and social programs. The policies he pursued starved communities of resources and threatened the most vulnerable residents of the city.
He said racist and crudely sexist things. He was stripped of almost all his powers because he so alienated the council he was elected to lead.
I believe all of these are true. And for all these reasons, I would strongly oppose building any significant public monuments to his memory in the city — no statue outside city hall, thanks. No renaming Union Station or large public parks or main streets or airports in his memory. No. He doesn’t deserve that.
Besides, I remember him, and the city under his chaotic mayoralty, all too well, thanks. I don’t need anything else to remind me.
But also, he was the mayor of Toronto, and even after all we went through with him, he remained a beloved figure to a significant chunk of Torontonians.
Especially in much of Etobicoke. He represented Ward 2 as a city councillor for 10 years before he was mayor, and again for more than a year after he was no longer mayor, until his death — re-elected there in a landslide even after all the internationally infamous mayoral business. Such is his and his family’s influence there that his nephew, a political neophyte, was elected to replace him.
Those people, who knew Rob Ford as their own representative, and a majority of whom supported him at the ballot box again and again, they deserve to have their own memories reflected in the city too, in their own neighbourhood, I think.
And anyone’s memory of Ford would recognize that he never seemed so passionate about anything as he did about youth football. He founded teams, and coached them, at two high schools — he continued to coach even while he was mayor. He founded and ran a charity to fund football programs at high schools, and devoted so much energy and so many resources to doing so — arguably city resources, in some cases — that it almost got him removed from office as mayor well before any of his addiction problems were apparent.
Indeed, when he was doing his job as mayor, he often appeared angry or flustered or frustrated or in over his head. But when he spoke about football, and coaching it, he was obviously happy.
Of course, even there his legacy is complicated. I, like most journalists in this city who covered city hall during his time, have heard from many of his former players about how positive an influence he was in their lives. I have also heard many arguments that he was using the students he coached for his own purposes, and that he was known sometimes to be verbally abusive with his players. Nearing the end of his scandalous mayoralty, while he was in the depths of drug and alcohol abuse and the media circus that surrounded this, he was asked to stop coaching the team at Don Bosco High School.
Like almost everything to do with Rob Ford, there is bad to weigh alongside the good. But undeniably, over the years, he poured thousands of dollars of his own money into football programs and countless hours of time.
He clearly believed he was doing good for the community he served in this way, and many (though not all) members of that community agreed with him. The money he raised supported programs at other schools he was not involved with. He was devoted to high school football to a fault.
If Ford is to be recognized at all — and whatever else he was, he was an unforgettable mayor of the city — it seems perfectly appropriate to me that he have something near the area he long represented named after him.
A 2,200-seat football field would seem to recognize both his greatest passion in public life, and what many found his most endearing pursuit.
I say all this with the proviso that such a memorial should be predicated on the support of the community where it will exist. If the people in the neighbourhood rise up at community meetings or in petitions and say they do not want Ford memorialized in their area, or not in this way, then I’d be inclined to listen to them. Given my own opinion of the man, I’m already inclined to understand that point of view.
But if some majority of local residents Ford represented longest want a memorial to him in their neighbourhood, to reflect what he meant to them, then this seems like just about a perfect way to go about it. Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire