City council will have to declare Ford's seat vacant at one of its next two meetings (March 30-31 or May 3-4). It will then have 60 days to either call a by-election or appoint someone to take his place.

Councillor Ford's final meeting at City Hall was a January 4 gathering of the Government Management Committee. The minutes record him as the lone dissenter on votes pertaining to the redevelopment of St. Lawrence Market North and the revitalization of Union Station.

Macdoc wrote:Good riddance.

This coincided with the release of two new books about Ford, including one by Mark Towhey, a former chief of staff, which recalled a phone call to Towhey in which Ford talked about "putting three bullets" in his wife Renata's head.

When as mayor he refused to give funding to the Pride parade, it was not because he was homophobic, as many in the gay community insisted.

It was because he saw how Pride officials had allowed the toxic Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to infiltrate the parade.

For Ford, the funding was there for the taking, but not if hate was part of a public parade.

I won’t dwell on his crack and alcohol addictions and the unfortunate things he said and did while under the influence.

Far too much vitriol, elsewhere, has been expended on that.

I didn’t condone his drug and alcohol-fuelled behaviour.

But let’s be clear: What he did only hurt himself.

Why was he judged so harshly when so many other politicians, past and present, received a free pass for their addictions?

I also understand what may have driven those hidden addictions to come to light.

Who among us, under the microscope of persistent harassment and frivolous court cases, might not have increasingly fallen back on some sort of vice, or dependency.

In that, and in so many other things, Ford harmed Toronto greatly, and not in the sense that our public image was diminished. Outside of Toronto he was only ever an amusing curiosity, fodder for the rest of the Toronto-hating country to make jokes, and for Americans to gawk a little in between late-night talk show jabs. But Toronto is still the same large, slightly underrated city it has always been in the eyes of the rest of the world, when they bother to think about us. No, Ford’s impact was on our local politics, and it was for the worse. Our transit politics have been poisoned by the framing Ford relentlessly pushed on transit—he argued for subways in terms of moral entitlement, of people underserved by public transit “deserving” a subway irrespective of the actual need for one in those areas. His advocacy for fiscal conservatism—in a city with some of the lowest property taxes in the province, and which multiple auditors have stated runs reasonably efficiently—likewise sees us to a point where raising property taxes to the levels needed simply cannot be considered. And, of course, he gave bigots in this city a voice they did not merit.

And if there is a final tragedy of Rob Ford, it is this: he was had so much opportunity to really help people, and so much desire to help them. And because of who he was, he failed.

Who will stand up and say no to fleecing the taxpayer in the future?

Congratulations. You won. Thanks to cancer, you beat him.

Robert Bruce Ford is gone, so there’s no one left to protect the public purse.

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Yes, Canada's favourite crack smoking, pussy eating mayor is dead.

What an awful way to go. I hope his family is well.

Shrunk wrote:
Meanwhile, I couldn't help myself: I looked at what Joe Warmington had to say. Big mistake.

Who will stand up and say no to fleecing the taxpayer in the future?

Congratulations. You won. Thanks to cancer, you beat him.

Robert Bruce Ford is gone, so there’s no one left to protect the public purse.

I will have more to say in the days ahead. For now, I will say the organized campaign to bring down Rob Ford was a disgusting witch hunt. The safe injection site supporters with so much compassion for people battling drug problems showed him none. In fact, they tried to turn his problems into anchors to drag him down.

felltoearth wrote:The conservative rally with the Fords during the campaign was a real turning point IMO