HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 2013-12-11, Page 44 Lucknow Sentinel • Wednesday, December 11, 2013
e
m
Lucknow Sentinel
VOLUME 137 - ISSUE 19
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
P.O. Box 400,
619 Campbell Street
Lucknow Ontario NOG 2H0
phone: 519-528-2822
fax: 519-528-3529
www.Iucknowsentinel.com
SUN MEDIA
A Quebecor Media Company
MARIE DAVID
Publisher
marie.david@sun med ia.ca
JILLIAN UNDERWOOD
Sales representative
j i Ilian. underwood@sunmedia.ca
MARILYN MILTENBURG
office administrator
lucknow.sentinel@sun media.ca
Publications Mail Agreement
No. 40064683
RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO
SENTINEL CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT
P.O. Box 400 Lucknow ON NOG 2H0
For any non -deliveries or delivery concerns:
phone: 519-528-2822
e-mail: Iucknow.sentinel@sunmedia.ca
Office Hours:
Monday, Wednesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
All advertising and editorial deadlines: Friday 2 p.m.
Changes of address, orders for subscriptions, and undeliverable copies
(return postage guaranteed) are to be sent to The Lucknow Sentinel
at the address indicated here. Advertising is accepted on the condition
that in the event of a typographical error, the portion of the advertising
space occupied by the erroneous item together with a reasonable
allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the
advertisement will be paid at the applicable rates.
The Sentinel is available on microfilm at:
GODERICH LIBRARY, (from 1875)
52 Montreal Street
Goderich ON N7A 1 M3
Goderichlibrary@huroncounty.ca
KINCARDINE LIBRARY, (from 1875 to 1900 & 1935 to 1959)
727 Queen Street
Kincardine ON N2Z 1Z9
We acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada through the Canadian Periodical
Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities.
Canada
�ocna
Member of the Canadian Community
Newspaper Association and the Ontario
Community Newspapers Association
www.lucknowsentinel.com
Rob Ford: Not the only mayor to disgrace office
Wiith Mayor Rob Ford behav-
ng like an obnoxious party
guest who just won't leave,
it's time for the rest of us to accept that
reality and deal with it.
Barring the laying of criminal charges
against Ford that send him to prison
upon conviction, there's no way to
remove him from office.
Since Ford, for all the police surveil-
lance of him and the allegations of
wrongdoing arising from it, hasn't been
charged with anything, there's nothing
to stop him from running for mayor in
2014, as he has vowed to do.
Even if Ford was charged with any
crimes, it's unlikely the case would be
resolved before the next civic election
on Oct. 27.
Other mayors have refused to step
down while fighting criminal charges,
like London, Ontario Mayor Joe Fon-
tana, just down Highway 401 from
Toronto.
Fontana refused to quit after being
charged with fraud under $5,000,
breach of trust and uttering a forged
document, allegedly for using taxpay-
ers' money to help pay for his son's
wedding reception in 2005, when Fon-
tana was a Liberal MP.
Fontana, minister of labour in Paul
Martin's minority government, says
he's innocent and will defend himself
against these charges.
He's also contesting findings by the
Canada Revenue Agency that a charity
he headed was actually being run as a
tax shelter from which Fontana and
other directors improperly pocketed
money.
All this makes it highly unlikely Pre-
mier Kathleen Wynne will ever actually
pass special legislation empowering
Toronto council to remove Ford from
office, even if city council requests it.
That's because the political optics of
a Liberal government moving against a
Conservative mayor in Toronto, who
hasn't been charged with anything,
while leaving in place a Liberal mayor
in London, Ontario, who is facing crim-
inal charges, would be terrible.
Fortunately for Toronto, we have a
weak mayor system in which Ford is
only one vote on the 45 -member city
council.
That was the case even before council
stripped him of most of his mayoral
powers and handed them over to Dep-
uty Mayor Norm Kelly.
Even before that transference of
power, Ford was routinely losing votes
because he couldn't muster the 23
votes needed to win.
The real problem would have been if
we had a strong mayoral system, as do
many American cities, where the
mayor has the power to hire and fire
senior city officials.
Imagine the crisis this city could be
in right now — especially with the may-
or's brother, Coun. Doug Ford, accus-
ing Police Chief Bill Blair of being
biased against the mayor — if Rob Ford
had the power to fire the police chief.
For all these reasons, there's no crisis
in Toronto in terms of city governance.
As for those who insist Ford must be
removed from office because of the ter-
rible global reputation Toronto is get-
ting as the butt of jokes from late-night
American talk shows, some useful per-
spective can be found in Nick Wing's
amusing and informative Nov 6 col-
umn in The Huffington Post, "24 U.S.
mayors who prove we're also better
than Canada at electing embarrassing
officials." Noting that "U.S. mayors have
a storied tradition of shady deeds,"
Wing provides two dozen examples of
American chief magistrates who match
or surpass both what Ford has admit-
ted to and what he is alleged to have
done.
Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kil-
patrick, for example, was sentenced in
October to 28 years in prison on 24
counts of racketeering, extortion, brib-
ery, wire fraud and tax evasion.
Kilpatrick presided over a web of
municipal corruption that was so vast,
U.S. prosecutors said it actually
speeded up Detroit's bankruptcy.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner resigned
in August after numerous allegations
from women of inappropriate sexual
behaviour, including groping, kissing
and making lewd and suggestive com-
ments. One complainant, noted The
Huffington Post, "claimed the mayor
asked her to work without panties,
demanded kisses, told her he wanted to
see her naked and dragged her in a
headlock while whispering in her ear."
Then there was Frank Rizzo, mayor of
Philadelphia in the 1970s, an autocratic
leader accused by the city's blacks of
discriminating against them, who, in
his 1975 re-election campaign infa-
mously told a reporter: "Just wait, after
November you'll have a front row seat,
because I'm going to make Attila the
Hun look like a faggot."
So let's not make Ford a bigger deal
than he is — a failed, largely powerless
mayor who deserves to be soundly
defeated in next year's election.
Lorrie Goldstein,
QMI Agency