[PHOTO] The Cut The Waist Challenge Scale of Rob Ford, Toronto City Hall

[rfmcdonald]

Visiting Toronto City Hall during the during the most recent Doors Open Toronto event, my friend and I joined the long line to see the office of the mayor. In a corner in the front of his office stood his Cut the Waist Challenge scale.

In January 2012, Ford responded to the news that he weighed 330 pounds by making a public commitment to lose 50 pounds in six months and encouraging others to join. (The name of the challenge was a play on his campaign promises to cut bureaucratic waste in the city government.) That didn't happen. By June 2012, Ford was down only 17 pounds, having abandoned dieting some months before. The scale has later appeared in reports of his misbehaviour, most famously being jumped upon on the night of St. Patrick's Day 2012.

Here the scale remains. I've been told that apparently acting mayor Norm Kelly wanted to remove the scale while Ford is off in rehab, but Ford's brother and fellow councillor Doug Ford blocked this. So here it stays.