Friday, May 17, 2013

Rob Ford | My Outlandish Mayor

Recently Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford has come under scrutiny from Gawker and The Toronto Star, after they accused the Mayor of  appearing in a video,which he is seen smoking crack and making homophobic and racist comments. Unfortunately, the video isn't available to the public. Recently three journalists, one from Gawker and the other two from the Toronto Star met some Somali men involved in the drug trade in the back of a car. The men are "shopping the video around", as they are looking to make a monetary gain off of it. A link to the full story, is found here.

I honestly want the public to see the video, don't get me wrong but should the public seriously be interested in raising $200,000 - which they plan to hand over to drug dealers? Probably not. As much as I personally think Rob Ford isn't the best mayor, or the right fit for a population as diverse as Toronto - I don't think handing over large sums of money to drug dealers is something people should be involved in.


I think Rob Ford's career is headed towards the tube anyway, and that money could go to some great and positive things. I'm a big fan of crowd funding, just not when it's used to make criminals rich. Hopefully Rob Ford saves people some money, and stops this circus before it gets out of hand (might be too late for that to be honest). If he was smart he'd step down and admit to smoking something other than Crack in the video, and play down the comments he made during the video.

Eventually the video will come out, so it is really up to Ford about how he wants to go about this. I think waiting for the video to either be purchased or leaked is a bad call. I think Ford needs to bite the bullet, and admit some wrong doing before this balloons out of control for him. He should try to retain some dignity, while there's some to retain.