CHARACTER SKETCH OF DOUG FORD
Jim Coyle
In Ontario’s scandal over Greenbelt development, erupting after release of a scathing auditor general’s report last week, there are two things worth remembering about the premier’s claim to sweet innocence about it all.
Over the course of decades, the family of Premier Doug Ford has rarely thought the rules applied to them.
And the notion that this premier knew nothing about how Greenbelt lands were sold off to developers in a process those same developers were guiding – that the chief-of-staff to his housing minister was stickhandling one of the government’s most controversial initiatives – does not pass the smell test.
In her report, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk found the process was too fast, lacked accountability, played favourites and that developers connected to Ford’s PC government stood to make more than $8 billion from the province’s land swap to free Greenbelt land for home construction.
Ford and his Housing Minister Steve Clark said they were unaware how Clark’s chief of staff was handling the process.
In the inevitable way of such things, more will likely be revealed and those pleas of innocence will be tested.
But the premier’s past performance hardly suggests a chap so hands-off and trusting and might reasonably provoke the raising of more than a few eyebrows.
The best character sketch of Doug Ford to date was provided by Mark Towhey, former chief of staff to Ford’s late brother, Rob, when the latter was Toronto mayor, in his 2015 book Mayor Rob Ford: Uncontrollable.
The brothers, who insisted on doing things their way, “weren’t used to people telling them ‘No’,” Towhey wrote. And not even Rob, while mayor, could tell Doug ‘No’.”
When Rob Ford was mayor, Doug more or less regarded himself as co-mayor, spent as much time in the mayor’s office as Rob, “coming and going as he pleased,” Towhey wrote.
In Rob’s boardroom, “he’d sit at the head of the table, in the mayor’s seat, and hold court.”
“Over time, Doug’s intrusions became more brazen. Sometimes when Rob was out of the office, Doug would let himself in and sit behind his desk, making calls or meeting with his own staff.”
Twohey said staff told the mayor: “we tried to rein Doug in, but he wouldn’t listen to us.”
And, Towhey wrote, “there was little upside to arguing with Doug Ford.”
Rob’s executive assistant would try to physically bar Doug from entering, “but Doug would barge right past him.”
By Towhey’s account, Doug meddled. He gossiped. He intruded. He leaked. He worked side schemes. He met CEOs and VIPs allegedly on his brother’s behalf but without telling anyone.
He badgered and bullied his hapless and troubled younger brother to the point of tears.
“In all the time, I worked with Rob at City Hall, he never once authorized Doug to speak for him,” Towhey wrote. “Never. But Doug did anyway. He couldn’t help himself.”
Towhey said Doug “was forever horning in on his brother’s photos – when a dignitary visited the mayor’s office or a major announcement was made.
“I think Doug wanted people to look at the photos and see him standing next to Rob – the taller, better dressed, slimmer, handsomer Jones (as the brothers called each other), with better teeth – and think, ‘There’s the man who should be mayor: Doug, not Rob’.”
It's true that people change. Political leaders in particular can be trained and buffed up.
But there are character traits bred in the bone. And it defies credulity to think that Doug Ford, given his, has become the kind of leader who would be content to remain happily oblivious while a minion managed an initiative with so much at stake.
Moreover, it’s hard to imagine the staffer who would dare to work independently on such an explosive project – particularly in a government so centrally controlled – without the boss’s knowledge.
Towhey spoke of Ford’s nature:
“Doug is a physical bully. He can be quick to anger, and, when opposed, puffs himself up and attempts direct intimidation – threatening physical violence or some form of retribution or retaliation.”
In the book, Doug Ford is portrayed as a man motivated by two chief desires in life – for recognition and acceptance, for power and influence.
“He struck me as a guy who hungered to find a home in the establishment,” Towhey wrote.
Such things, almost by definition, leave one vulnerable to misjudgments or manipulation. And when underlying that is a disdain for rules and process, trouble often looms.
Doug Ford’s susceptibility to such things was captured nicely in Towhey’s recollection of a proposal during Rob Ford’s administration to build at casino at Exhibition Place:
“I knew that with so many self-interested factions in the mix, and billions of dollars at play, there was a real threat of corruption. But Rob and Doug loved the idea. Dollar signs danced before their eyes.”
As a man once said, history doesn’t always repeat itself. But it does often rhyme.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jim Coyle - Jim Coyle spent 40 years in journalism with The Canadian Press, the Ottawa Citizen and Toronto Star. Over his career, Coyle covered breaking news, wrote columns, features, editorials and sports. He was nominated for National Newspaper Awards in four different categories. He has filed from every province and territory in Canada and has covered papal and royal tours, murder trials and judicial inquiries, the Grey Cup and the Calgary Olympics, and more elections and leadership conventions than he cares to recall. After retiring from the Star in 2018, Coyle taught journalism at Humber College. His proudest accomplishments are getting sober almost 30 years ago and, with his wife Andrea Gordon, also a former Star reporter, raising four sons.
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