Rob Ford has dropped out of Toronto’s mayoral race as he awaits biopsy results on an abdominal tumour, and his brother, Doug Ford, has registered to run in his place.
“He wanted to make sure that all of his accomplishments and hard work were not for nothing,” an emotional Doug Ford told reporters outside his mother’s house Friday evening.
He said the mayor asked him to “take the torch” while he focuses on his health.
But Rob Ford isn’t completely out; he will run as a city council candidate in his old Etobicoke North riding of Ward 2.
“I’ve asked Doug to finish what we started together, so that all we’ve accomplished isn’t washed away,” Rob Ford said in a statement Friday, the last day potential candidates could sign up or pull out.
The mayor’s decision came after the announcement Wednesday that he had been admitted to hospital with pain in his abdomen. Dr. Zane Cohen, a colorectal surgeon at the city’s Mount Sinai Hospital, said in an update on Thursday that Rob had undergone a biopsy and that they are awaiting test results.
“I’ve always known how much Rob loves his job,” Doug Ford said. “This is more than a job for Rob. It’s his life’s work.”
He said he and his brother have always shared interests and beliefs, from sports and politics to business and family life.
Although “no one here could ever replace” Rob Ford, Doug said he wants to continue his work.
“He told me our supporters need us to continue what we started,” he said.
Earlier Friday, mayoral candidate John Tory wished Rob Ford well and welcomed his brother into the mayoral race.
“I admire anybody who puts their name on the ballot,” Tory told reporters Friday.
But that’s where the niceties ended.
Tory slammed Doug Ford for “repeatedly” putting down his colleagues on council and being “insensitive” to people in the community, including parents of children with autism.
Tory said Doug Ford may not just be “more of the same” as his brother -- “he may offer Toronto something that is worse.”
Tory said voters have a choice on Oct. 27: four more years of “division” or a mayor who can get the city “back on track.”
Olivia Chow, the other major candidate in the race, said Friday afternoon that her thoughts and prayers are with the Ford family.
“When my late husband Jack passed away, Rob Ford was very supportive,” said the former New Democrat Member of Parliament, whose husband Jack Layton died of cancer in 2011. “I hope him a speedy recovery.”
Late Friday, a snap poll conducted by Forum Research for the Toronto Star showed Tory at 41 per cent and Doug Ford at 34 per cent -- higher than his brother Rob had been polling. Olivia Chow was third with 19 per cent.
Last-minute change
In a dramatic last-minute effort Friday, Dennis Morris, the Ford brothers' lawyer, went straight from the mayor’s hospital bed at Mount Sinai Hospital on Thursday afternoon to the elections office at City Hall make the changes. He was originally told that the paperwork was incomplete, but it was accepted before the 2 p.m. deadline.
Morris also withdrew Ford’s nephew, Michael Ford, from the council race that Rob Ford has now entered. Michael Ford was registered to run as a school board trustee instead.
“This puts a positive light on a very sad scenario,” Morris said after filing the paperwork shortly before the 2 p.m. deadline.
Rob Ford made headlines around the world last year when a video surfaced that appeared to show him smoking crack cocaine. CTV News has not viewed the video.
Ford admitted last November that he had smoked the drug, “probably in one of my drunken stupors,” and was stripped of many of his powers as a result.
After announcing he would run for re-election, he spent May and June of this year in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre.
Smoking crack wasn’t the only scandal the mayor faced. He has also made questionable comments about people with AIDS, Asian Canadians, black Canadians and Italians.
He has been accused of driving drunk, driving while talking on his cell phone, and driving past streetcar doors in his signature black SUV.
The city integrity commissioner found he improperly used council resources while fundraising for his football foundation.
But that’s not all. Former mayoral candidate Sarah Thompson said he touched her inappropriately and was later heard on tape making lewd comments about another then-mayoral candidate, Karen Stintz.
Rob was elected to council from Etobicoke in 2000. Doug was elected to council in 2010. Their father was a Progressive Conservative MPP from 1995 to 1999.
