Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s debate performance ‘surprising’
Posted Mar 27, 2014 08:12:45 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Rob Ford faced frequent attacks during Toronto’s first televised mayoral debate last night, but none of his key rivals directly raised the drugs and other scandals surrounding the mayor.
Instead, the debate saw Ford and four other mayoral contenders chew over local issues such as transit and minding the city’s budget.
Former New Democrat M-P Olivia Chow was the first candidate to allude to but not mention Ford’s well known problems — including smoking crack cocaine and spouting obscenities on live television
But Ford repeated his campaign themes and claimed he has “stopped the gravy train” of spending at city hall.
Chow, though, was quick to shoot him down and charged that it was time for him to go.
For his part, former provincial Tory leader John Tory accused Ford of letting taxpayers down and ruining the city’s reputation.
Asked later about their hesitation to tackle Ford directly on the scandals, Chow, Tory, Karen Stintz and David Soknacki said they preferred to talk policy.
Toronto voters head to the polls on October 27th.
