John Filion - The Only Average Guy: Inside the Uncommon World of Rob Ford

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright 2015 John Filion

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2015 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Filion, John,

The only average guy : inside the uncommon world of Rob Ford / John Filion.

ISBN 978-0-345-81599-6

eBook ISBN 978-0-345-81601-6

1. Ford, Rob, 1969. 2. MayorsOntarioTorontoBiography.

3. Toronto (Ont.)Politics and government21st century. I. Title.

FC3097.26.F67F55 2015 971.354105092 C2015-906253-5

Cover image: Fresh Eyes / Arrivals.ca by Che Kothari, Devon Ostrom and Kate Fraser+Commissioned by the Arts and Culture Program of the

Toronto 2015 Pan /Parapan Am Games

v3.1

To my late Aunt DeeBoo (Geraldine Gribbin) for encouraging my interest in politics and writing from the time I was old enough to read

O n the morning of my grade eight graduation, as families headed home from church for a traditional Sunday breakfast before the afternoon ceremony, I spotted Duncan ONeill alone on a bench, a brown lunch bag at his side. Duncan had joined our class towards the end of the year, a big kid two years too old for the grade. He wasnt part of anybodys world, accepted by neither the popular kids who werent so smart nor the smart kids who werent so popular.

A boy in my class is sitting over there by himself, I said to my mother.

Ask if he wants to come to our house for breakfast, she responded right away.

Duncan was happy to join us. He said many times how much he liked the bacon and eggs, each time quickly adding that his mother sometimes made him a breakfast just like this.

I barely knew Duncan and never saw him again after that day. Why he had popped into my thoughts was a mystery until I recognized the similarity to another big kid who didnt fit in when he arrived at Toronto city council, late in 2000. This one was often loud and aggressive, but I thought I recognized in him a shy, awkward kid who seemed painfully alone.

If Rob Ford had been my grade eight classmate and my mother had seen him sitting without a friend, she would have said, Ask if he wants to come to our house for breakfast. Rob would have happily joined us. He would have said many times how much he liked the bacon and eggs, each time quickly adding that his mother sometimes made him a breakfast just like this.

Rob Ford didnt know my mother. But when she died, in 2007, he drove from Etobicoke to North York on a Friday night. He entered the funeral home quietly and, after paying his respects, left the same way.

I do not doubt reports of Rob Fords monstrously bad behaviour. Nor would I deny that a beast lurks within, released by alcohol and drugs. My friends often ridiculed and demonized Ford at the same time, as if you couldnt heap enough scorn on a creature like him. My observation that Rob had many sides to him, and that there must be reasons for the way he was, only irritated them. They saw him as stupid and dangerous, an ignorant buffoon. They wanted him to be simply that. They were uncomfortable with my empathy for the man. Maybe they thought it eroded my belief that Rob Ford was unfit to be mayor. It didnt. I was the city councillor who thought up the motions that took away Fords powers as mayor of Torontoand made sure they passed a council votein November 2013. I took no pleasure in itquite the oppositebut believed it had to be done.

For two months afterwards, when I passed Ford in the hall, he met my Hey Rob with a menacing glare. Then, during the January 2014 council meeting, I watched with apprehension as Rob slid from his seat and walked deliberately towards mine. He was holding a sheet of paper, which he thrust in front of me. Robs expression, unreadable at first, became a half smile.

The paper was a football pool, with a spot for me to fill in my picks. He wanted me to play again. Dont get me wrong, he said, making it clear that our football friendship wouldnt protect me from political payback. Im taking you out in the next election. Im going to smoke you.

The football pool was a holdover from the ten years when we sat two seats apart on Toronto council, before Rob became mayor. He represented the mostly working-class area of north Etobicoke, I the more affluent North York community of Willowdale. When newly elected first-time councillors arrive at the beginning of each term, most are barely visible for the first few months. Not so with Rob Ford. He invited immediate comparisons to the late comedian Chris Farley, whose earnest buffoonery produced one misadventure after another. When Ford exploded from his seat to denounce his spendthrift colleagues, I had a front-row view. Proximity to Ford so rattled one councillor that he changed seats. I was always more curious than anything else. What was beneath all that anger?

Between outbursts, Rob sat silently, seemingly detached from everything and everyone around him. We need to find a way to relate to this guy, Councillor Joe Mihevc suggested one day. My seatmate since 1999, Joe was the sort who fostered relationships with nearby councillors. The big guy to our left was hard to reach. But wed noticed Robs obsession with football, and so we started a pool and invited him to join us. Rob never realized that Joe and I knew nothing about the game because, against all odds, our random picks consistently beat his more informed choices.

When he paid us our winnings, wed tell him we were donating his money to left-wing causes. He loved that kind of boyish pushing and shoving, and gave the same back the few times he won. One year, he clobbered us in the Super Bowl pool and never let us forget it. He would happily endure weeks of losses for a single day of victory.

Apart from council meetings and a few lunches, Rob and I spent little time together. But I was his football pool buddy, which was not a small thing in his life, I came to realize. After he was elected mayor in 2010, and council divided itself into hostile factions, our football bets ended. Bumping into him at a function more than a year into his mayoralty, I bemoaned the loss of disposable income from my winnings.

The day after, my executive assistant told me, The mayors office is calling, he wants your football picks. Another staff member stopped me: The mayors staff is e-mailing. They need your picks. Taking a washroom break, I encountered a senior Ford staffer at the next urinal. Councillor, he said, would you