Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Coun. Doug Ford, have been on a media blitz in recent days in an attempt to counter a message sent by city council when it stripped him of his powers that he is unfit to govern. Their claims have sent fact-checkers into overdrive. Herein are some of their recent claims, and what the records show.
Drugs:
“I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in three weeks. I don’t do drugs, maybe a year ago whatever happened, happened,” Mayor Ford told CP24’s Stephen LeDrew on Tuesday.
“I don’t smoke crack, I haven’t smoked crack in over a year,” Ford told CNN in a segment that aired Monday.
FALSE: According to a police document released Tuesday, police say the video in which the mayor is purportedly smoking crack cocaine was recorded in February 2013, nine months ago.
“It’s not a crack house. Go there,” Ford told LeDrew about 15 Windsor Rd., where he is pictured in a photo with two men who now face drug charges and a third who was shot dead earlier this year.
FALSE: In court documents, police refer to the home as a “Trap House,” a euphemism for “crack house.”
“I didn’t know Mr. Lisi two years ago,” Ford tells LeDrew of his friend Alexander “Sandro” Lisi, who is charged with extortion over his alleged attempts to obtain the video in which Ford is purportedly seen smoking crack cocaine.
FALSE: In a reference letter Ford wrote for Lisi dated June 4, 2013, the mayor says he knows Lisi “through his volunteer work on my 2010 election campaign,” and later says “I have known Mr. Lisi for several years.”
Job performance:
“The people elected me with the largest mandate in Canada’s history,” Ford told the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge on Monday.
FALSE: While Ford did receive 383,501 votes in the 2010 election, Mel Lastman received 483,277 votes in the 2000 election -- nearly 100,000 more.
“I’ve never missed one day of council, and I’ve been straight as an arrow every day for 13 years down there,” Ford told LeDrew.
FALSE: Public records show that, out of 440 council or committee sessions of the current term that began in 2010, Ford was absent 84 times.
“If there’s such a crisis in the city, the city’s falling apart, it’s not. The unemployment rate’s from 11 per cent down to 7 per cent,” Ford told LeDrew.
TRUE & FALSE: A City of Toronto report dated Nov. 12, 2013 reported that indeed, the city’s unemployment rate fell by 2.9 percentage points between April 2012 and August 2013. However, those gains were lost in the past two months, and the city’s unemployment rate for October was 9.8 per cent, higher than the national rate of 6.9 per cent.
