[URBAN NOTE] On Mayor Rob Ford's latest (abortive) conflict of interest

[rfmcdonald]

The National Post's Natalie Alcoba notes that Rob Ford has backed down somewhat. He still wants to run a slate of councillors, it seems, but he's not going to use his official phone number for it.

Mr. Ford issued a statement Tuesday evening in response to a complaint by Councillor Josh Matlow, who said using city resources for campaign purposes breaks the code of conduct.

“As many of you know, one of my greatest passions is promoting and encouraging people to become involved with local government,” the Mayor said in the statement, which made no more mention of a slate. “It was my intent to provide my direct personal line.”

Councillor Matlow, who had earlier in the day denounced turning the Mayor’s office a “perpetual campaign hotline,” said he received a call from Mr. Ford.

“He unreservedly apologized to me. I found him to be very gracious and I consider the matter closed,” said Mr. Matlow (St. Paul’s). “It’s important that while there may be differences of opinion, we need to find common cause and work for Toronto.”

The comments in question were made during the weekly Newstalk 1010 radio show the Mayor hosts with Councillor Doug Ford on Sunday. “I’m only one person,” Mr. Ford lamented, before reciting his City Hall phone number for listeners who might want to run for office. “We need to run a slate next time. We have to get rid of the other 24 councillors,” he said, referring to the group that quashed his subway plans in favour of light rail transit.

He talked about meeting “great candidates” over the past couple of weeks, including Ken Chan, who came second to Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam in Toronto Centre-Rosedale, and Jon Burnside, who lost to Councillor John Parker in Don Valley West.

The Mayor’s public appeal for interested candidates came as no surprise to some councillors, who say they have already been warned about a Ford nation campaign to unseat them in 2014. Indeed, while councillors on both sides of the spectrum talk about consensus and moving on from the transit vote, the Mayor talks about a “with us or against us” approach.

Open File's John Michael McGrath wondered before news of the apology what should be done with Rob Ford. He just doesn't seem to understand the basic concept behind "conflict of interest."

The key issue is that Ford told listeners that interested candidates could call his city-paid office line.

(Using city resources for an election campaign is a breach of the city's Code of Conduct for councillors, and according to the council expense policy is illegal under the Municipal Elections Act.)

[. . . U]nlike the last time an Integrity Commissioner matter came to council, it's not clear that Ford would risk any punishment more than needing to apologize to council over the breach of the code, and it's doubly uncertain that anyone is interested in bringing another allegation against the mayor under the Municipal Elections Act. So while this kind of thing is worth noting in passing, it does raise the question of whether the Integrity Commissioner needs to be strengthened somehow to impose something closer to a real punishment on councillors when they serially violate the Code of Conduct.

These multiple issues suggest to me that either Ford doesn't understand or doesn't accept the ideas behind the Code of Conduct.