The trusty Star reports today that Toronto has sunk deeper into debt under Ford:

Over the past two years, the city borrowed $1.5 billion to pay for capital costs — including transit equipment ordered by Ford’s predecessor — and repaid $700 million, thus increasing the debt burden by $800 million.

This doesn’t come as a shock, but it’s important to point out that the brunt of the burden comes from a couple of administrations ago, so it’s entirely fair to say that Ford inherited the problem.

But then he made it worse:

Ford has championed cutting the cost of government, scrapping the $60 vehicle tax shortly after taking office, and holding down increases in property taxes which are traditionally put toward capital costs, along with borrowed funds.

…

In 2011, on Ford’s insistence, the city froze property taxes. The next year he limited the increase to 2.5 per cent, in line with inflation.

About half of the borrowing was to pay for transit infrastructure, such as replacing worn-out vehicles. Other big-ticket infrastructure spending went to areas such as roads, parks and housing.

Have you ever wondered where you can find Toronto’s latte-sipping urban elites? Do you want to know where you can observe the “pinko left-wing kook” in its native habitat?

Well wonder no more!

The Star has graciously mapped it out for you in glorious hipstervision:

*sigh*

I honestly thought that the naked rhetoric of Rob Ford’s “guarantees” had finally come to and end, that people had finally seen through the lies and blatant bullshit that keeps spilling out of his mouth. But then I remember that this is Ford Nation we’re talking about here, the types of people who would welcome the Fords to literally rape their family so long as he kept their child-like suspicions at bay through years of shallow, empty, meaningless, and broken promises.

And it was indeed Ford Nation, flying it’s ignorance high and proud at the recent picnic to celebrate Rob Ford’s many crowning achievements, taking the opportunity to shut down a public park to sing glory to their beloved weighty overlord. So it’s no surprise that no one in the crowd bothered to question the fact that Ford was once again making the same “guarantee” that he’s been failing miserably to implement and, in fact, has shown time and again that he has absolutely no idea how to bring about (unless someone had a couple of billion they were planning on “investing” at the event).

“There’s one thing I promise and I’m going to get, are those subways. Mark my words. The subways are coming. I have to be politically correct. I can tell you where we want to send those LRTs, but like I said, I’ve got to behave. So, LRTs can go somewhere, but subways are coming to Scarborough. Guaranteed.”

Obviously Robbie showed an insane amount of self-restraint in not swearing on an open, public mic during an all-ages event, but clearly he wanted to.

The crowd must’ve thought that Ford not telling them to go fuck themselves, or any other number of ignorance and hatred-laced Fordisms, was next to Jesus on the righteousness scale, and they hooted and hollered as their man openly lied to their faces again – open, simple, idiotic lies (and yes, at this point lies is all they can be), that anyone with half a brain would be able to see through. And therein, clearly, lies the problem.

It’s not tough to imagine that Ford’s mayoralty will come and go with more money wasted than saved, higher taxes, higher costs and reduced or eliminated services, and basically the exact opposite of everything that Ford claims. Ford will blame and point fingers, of course, and then demand to have another four years of lies and dismal failures which he will “guarantee!” will definitely, for sure — just trust him! — happen this time.

Our friend Michael sent a tongue-in-cheek email to the office of the mayor with a money saving suggestion (lot cheaper than security) — use cleaner for your shirts instead of hiring goons to tackle yoga instructors.

In any event, the response didn’t reflect nearly as much jolliness as you’d think the Fords’ office would engender. I know, Stain Away is primarily known as a denture cleaner, but the strange connotation that that conjures up was never addressed in the follow-up email.

Here’s Michael to explain:

This is a response I just received from Sheila in Mayor Blob’s office where she states that my recommendation that Blob buy some Stain Away, rather than hire security because his shirt got splashed during a slushie fly by, is a veiled threat against Mayor Blob.

“Mr. Irvine
Mayor Rob Ford has repeatedly said it is not his intention at this time to hire personal security.

Are you suggesting that the Mayor will be attacked again (stain away reference)? Do you think it is appropriate that people are physically attacked?

Are you condoning violence against public figures or members of the government. More importantly is it your intent with this email to make a veiled threat against the Mayor or inciting violence against the Mayor?

Most reasonable people know that violence is not appropriate, and that it is illegal.”

Sheila
Director of Policy
Office of the Mayor

Best as we can figure, that’s Sheila Paxton, listed on the Ford office roster as “Senior Policy Advisor”. Seems like an ill-advised way to go about crafting a response.

Sarah and I have put some love and care into our little mobile game and we’ve now released the first full version!

This edition of our seemingly simple tile-based puzzle game includes 16 tricky levels, and a bunch of fixes and enhancements we won’t bore you with.

Did I mention it’s free?

Try it out now: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.olliebit.FloorPig

P.S. If you don’t have an Android device, the web and iOS versions are almost ready. Hang in there!

You may remember a couple of months ago that Clayton Ruby, the lawyer who took Rob Ford to court on conflict of interest charges (and won), was planning to take the subsequent appeal (which allowed Ford to walk away on a technicality), to the Supreme Court.

Well, on Thursday he’s to learn if his appeal will be heard. He’s not optimistic, but others are more so.

The question Ruby is seeking to answer is a simple one: what’s the purpose of having things like conflict of interest laws when no public official can so much as be looked at funny when they break them? At least that’s the gist of it.

Of course the thing has to do with Rob Ford who has subsequently demonstrated exactly why the public needs to be able to throw out criminal politicians. And even if, perish the thought, you actually support Rob Ford, then at least it’s worthwhile to consider this for someone you don’t care for much — someone like Miller, maybe?

Most troubling about this, however, is the tiny fact that the Supreme Court only heard 12% of appeals last year (while typically hearing an average of 60%). This, it’s said, because the courts only choose cases of “public importance”, and I guess last year must not have been really very worthy, certainly nothing the public would care about.

Robbie’s having a rough day. Maybe it has something to do with that pesky crack tape that just won’t seem to go away. Maybe it’s because he just can’t make any friends.

“I don’t care if you’re 2 years old, 20 years old or 200 years old, you’re not going to live for free,” Ford said. Of TCHC chief executive Gene Jones, he said, “Obviously he has fixed the problem. Is it perfect? No.” Turning to a left-leaning critic, he yelled, “You! You’re the problem!”

Oh yes he did.

The fact is, this [proposed casino] is a huge opportunity for Toronto and for Ontario. The private sector is ready to invest $2-3 Billion or more in a Toronto project that will generate hundreds of millions of dollars on an ongoing basis for local and provincial government. For a project this size, Toronto should share equally in that revenue with the province. This would provide Toronto with up to $150 million in annual revenue.New property taxes and potential lease income would add to that.

Wasn’t he against more taxes?

*sigh*

The Toronto Sun recently asked what councillors, and anyone opposed to a Toronto casino, have against jobs?

That’s “10,000” casino jobs as promised by Rob and Doug Ford, the same jobs that Rob outwardly rejected because Kathleen Wynne wasn’t prepared to bend to his irrational and completely made-up demands:

“If the province won’t agree (to) that $100 million, then folks, the deal is dead. We are not going to carry on the casino debate.”

The Sun, of course, conveniently left that fact out and instead (just like their heroes Rob and Doug), pointed fingers at everything and everyone else. Had they included the most vocal and blusterous opponents of the casino — the Fords themselves — the following line would’ve taken on a whole different tone:

A really clever Toronto councillor would have cast aside their own prejudices for a moment and considered the wider public benefit.

It’s not fair to say that the Fords were solely against their pet project — the vote was 40 to 4 — so clearly other councillors were involved. And the numbers indicate that those councillors weren’t just the “lefties” that the ignorant Sun writers keep bashing.

In fact, at least one of those “lefty” councillors wanted to know how much Ford’s hare-brained casino idea was going to cost Toronto, something the Fords never bothered to question in their quest against “gravy” — just like the $3 million KPMG report Ford indiscriminately sole-sourced to simultaneously ignore the wishes of taxpayers in order to “save” money for the city.

In the end, councillor Mary Fragedakis got her answer: $370 thousand

The Sun (and others), were quick to distance Ford from this jaw-dropping waste, even though this was his and his brother’s baby from day one, and is yet another example of how Rob Ford is wasting millions of taxpayer money, not saving it.

The story was framed as “the casino debate that cost taxpayers $370,000”, even though the debate was just part of regular City Hall business. It was all the research that went into the casino idea that cost nearly half a million dollars, and that came at the direct behest of the Ford brothers. In other words, Rob and Doug Ford cost the city $370 grand.

This came at the same time that Ford attempted to explain his boasts of saving the city $1 billion dollars, which sounded like a fabrication while Ford refused to elaborate on it, and is now seemingly more so:

Councillor Gord Perks dismissed the mayor’s math.

“The mayor doesn’t seem to understand the difference between addition and subtraction or between addition and multiplication,” Perks told the Toronto Sun. “This is a completely bogus claim.”

Perks argued Ford was counting some things twice — like the cut to the car tax and then the cut to spending.

“They seem to have forgotten the millions of dollars they’ve spent in consultants, the millions of dollars they’ve spent paying staff to go away, the tens of millions of dollars in cancellation of Transit City,” he said.

“Over 10 years they’re adding $400 million in transportation projects — that actually costs money, it doesn’t save money.”

The vocal Ford critic stressed residents are paying more tax under Mayor Ford than under his predecessor.

“The basic thing is a Torontonian pays more tax today than when David Miller was mayor,” Perks said.

As an interesting and informative aside, the brain farts on Ford’s former (?) cheer leading squad, the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition, pegged the potential benefits of a casino at $400 million. These same pinheads, led by a loser with absolutely no experience in either government or finance and who couldn’t hack it in the tech field, are constantly propped up by the same media seeking to explain their ever-growing canopy of misinformation and bizarre justifications.

Now that this ongoing waste is out in the open and really nothing has changed, including Ford’s fantasy math, and both he and his brother are vowing to renew the debate (with Woodbine Casino), potentially wasting another half million, it’s looking like the brothers Ford are already gearing up for the next round of the finger pointing game.

The title of this post takes some liberties with Councillor Jaye Robinson’s comments on being fired from Rob Ford’s Executive Committee, but it’s not far off the mark:

“…it’s unfortunate that the mayor didn’t have the fortitude to tell me to my face that I’ve been removed from executive. I’ve been given no reasons. This is not a mid-term shuffle, this is not a normal time to shift and make adjustments to your cabinet.”

Convicted criminal and known public liar Ford responded with his typical “everything’s fine!”-style comment while taking the opportunity to imply that Robinson is the one lying, this despite the fact that this is the 19th person to abandon Ford Nation. That is, if you don’t include the now-demoted Paul Ainslie, the vitriol the Fords hurl at Karen Stintz, or the ignominiously fired Gary Webster.

Ford’s Club for Sycophants, now that Robinson is gone, is now a proper old boys’ club: