Chow defends support for renaming stadium after Rob Ford, saying she understands ‘pain of losing a loved one’

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is defending her support for renaming a stadium in Etobicoke after former mayor Rob Ford, despite criticism about the effort.

“I do know the pain of losing a loved one. I understand that,” Chow told reporters Wednesday morning. “That is why I supported Councillor (Paul) Ainslie’s motion to name a football stadium, because I understood what that meant for the Ford family. I certainly understood how painful it was for a young person to die prematurely. And yeah, that's why it's in front of the agenda today.”

Chow lost her husband, former city councillor and federal NDP leader Jack Layton, to cancer in 2011.

The motion added to the agenda last week by Coun. Ainslie revives a 2017 effort to name the stadium in Centennial Park after the late mayor. It asks council to skip over the normal policy for naming city property in order to honour Ford, who died from a rare cancer in 2016 at the age of 46.

But some councillors have said that they won't support the motion to honour the controversial former mayor, who struggled with substance abuse issues during a single term in office from 2010 to 2014.

Ford’s time at city hall was also marked by several controversies.

While on council, Ford apologized for using racial slurs. As mayor, he was criticized for regularly skipping the city’s Pride festivities, though he did attend a flag-raising for Pride Week in 2013.

“Well I have to say that, you know, Rob Ford was known to be homophobic, sexist, at times racist. And so for me as a Black gay man, I find it hard to support something like that. So it is what it is,” Coun. Chris Moise told reporters Wednesday.

Moise said he would not be supporting the motion.

Also speaking with reporters Wednesday, Coun. Brad Bradford said he sees both sides of the issue, but that he's unsure how he'll vote.

“Obviously Rob Ford was a sort of divisive figure. There are people who love him, and I would say he is beloved,” Bradford said. “And I've been to those doors where people talk about those individual moments where they had an experience with Rob Ford showing up fixing the pothole, you know, going into Toronto Community Housing buildings and fixing some of the challenges there and those connections, you know, will last a lifetime for those individuals.

“And then also there is another part of that history and that story where he struggled with his demons and that was very difficult as well. So to be honest with you, I don't know where I'm at on that at this exact moment.”

However, Bradford did say that council should not be ignoring the processes that it has spent time developing for renaming properties. He said both the motion to rename the stadium after Ford and another motion being brought forward over the renaming of Dundas Street skip over that process.

“You know what's interesting is that this council has spent hours and hours, days of debate over the past number of years trying to create a new process for renaming, whether its streets or plazas or you know, municipal infrastructure such as the stadium,” Bradford said. “And we have two items on the agenda today that are both bypassing all that process and just sort of saying ‘Hey, let's do that!’”

Moise has a member’s motion which is set to be considered by council Thursday afternoon on the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square and Dundas Station.

Asked Wednesday whether it was contradictory to move forward with renaming Dundas Street because its original namesake was controversial while at the same time naming another city property after a controversial figure, Chow said the Dundas renaming has gone through “a fairly extensive process” and that Rob Ford and Henry Dundas should not be compared.

“I certainly would not compare someone that delayed… the abolition of slavery (to Rob Ford).”

Some critics of the renaming process have pointed to scholarship suggesting that Dundas was a misunderstood historical figure who voted to delay ending slavery for practical reasons, not because he was against the idea.

Council is expected to consider Ainslie’s motion to rename the stadium after Ford, as well as Moise’s motion on Dundas, on Thursday.