TORONTO — Toronto’s embattled mayor says he’s turning his life around, staying off alcohol and trying to lose weight — all while threatening legal action against city council for stripping him of most of his powers.
In a series of interviews with Canadian and American television networks Rob Ford promised people will see a positive change in him in the near future.
He told CBC News The National in an interview with host Peter Mansbridge Monday night that he has had a “come to Jesus moment” brought on by the “belittling” he has endured lately.
The interview capped a day which saw Ford remain defiant despite a series of votes in city council that reduced his powers to ribbon cutting.
Ford’s criminal lawyer, Dennis Morris, said the mayor is spending up to two hours a day exercising, has revamped his diet and is receiving “professional support” including care from a medical doctor.
“It isn’t just going to the gym and having a few shakes, he’s addressing a substance abuse problem, and I don’t think you have to ask too many questions to realize it’s probably alcohol,” Morris told The Canadian Press.
Though the mayor has denied being addicted to drugs or alcohol, the allegations laid out in police documents are “part and parcel of indicia of having a substance abuse challenge,” Morris said.
In an interview broadcast this morning on NBC’s Today, Ford was combative under questioning by host Matt Lauer, who asked him about his admitted binge drinking.
Lauer asked Ford if he’d be able to handle a terror attack or disaster in the city if he’d been out on a binge the night before — but Ford said that could happen to anyone.
“I’m very fortunate that hasn’t happened. It’s very few isolated incidents that it’s happened,” Ford replied.
“That could happen with anybody at any time.”
In Monday’s vote, councillors slashed Ford’s mayoral budget and handed many of his duties and staff to the city’s deputy mayor, Norm Kelly.
Kelly told reporters Tuesday he would carry on with the mayor’s fiscally conservative agenda, but adopt a “more co-operative” approach that is “more sensitive to the arguments and positions of others.”
Another councillor said the votes went to great lengths “to isolate the mayor and limit the damage” he can do to the city.
“Ford continues to put himself ahead of the best interests of the city,” Coun. Joe Mihevc said Tuesday.
“He has brought shame and embarrassment to the city, dishonour to the office of mayor, and has a record of failed leadership.”
Mihevc also said it’s time for council to get back to “boring.”
Ford called Monday’s votes a “coup d’etat” and a declaration of war, comparing what happened to him to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
Ford’s lawyer, George Rust-D’Eye, said he might seek an injunction against council’s decisions but was still waiting for instructions.
City staff said they believed their actions, which are essentially in force until the next municipal election in October 2014, would withstand legal scrutiny.
Ford: a boon or hindrance to Harper,
who might need Ford Nation next election
OTTAWA — Rob Ford has been making international headlines for weeks, soaring into the celebrity stratosphere with surreal antics that have transfixed the globe.
Canada’s prime minister, meantime, appears to be among the few living souls with no opinion on the Toronto mayor’s spectacular fall from grace.
It’s left Stephen Harper and the Conservatives vulnerable to ridicule in the House of Commons; Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says he’ll take no lessons in accountability from “Rob Ford’s fishing buddy.”
Harper’s office finally weighed in on Ford this week in a statement that called the mayor’s behavior “troubling” while taking a swipe at Trudeau for his admission that he’d smoked pot while a sitting MP.
The PMO’s statement on Ford appeared designed to avoid angering so-called Ford Nation, that fierce battalion of Ford supporters in the outlying regions of Toronto who still back the mayor.
They’re a formidable force whose allegiance to their leader keeps him perched in a higher spot in public opinion polls than where Harper is currently languishing, even in the face of Ford’s ongoing woes.
A slew of Ford supporters worked for the federal Conservatives during the 2011 federal election campaign.
The mayor’s muscle in the Toronto suburbs was a boon to his federal colleagues during that election, helping them win several hard-fought races in the city’s outlying ridings.