Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story

1956

September 1

Doug Ford Sr. and Diane Campbell are married.

1962

Doug Ford Sr. and Ted Herriott start Deco Adhesive Products.

1969

May 28

Robert Bruce Ford is born at Humber Memorial Hospital in Etobicoke.

1983/1984

Rob Ford is a first-year student at Scarlett Heights Collegiate Institute. This is also his brother Doug Ford Jr.’s graduating year.

1995

June 8

Doug Ford Sr. is elected in Etobicoke-Humber as a Progressive Conservative MPP in the Ontario government under Premier Mike Harris.

1997

November 10

Rob Ford runs for Toronto City Council in Ward 3 Kingsway Humber. He finishes fourth with 9,366 votes.

1998

January 1

The “megacity” is born. Seven municipal governments amalgamate to form the new City of Toronto.

July 25

Kathy Ford’s boyfriend, Michael Kiklas, dies after being gunned down by Kathy’s estranged husband, Ennio Stirpe.

1999

February 15

Rob Ford is charged with drunk driving and possession of marijuana in Miami, Florida. (The drug charge would later be dropped.)

May

Doug Ford Sr. finishes his term as an MPP.

2000

August 12

Rob Ford marries Renata Brejniak at All Saints Roman Catholic Church in Etobicoke.

November 13

Rob Ford is elected to Toronto City Council in Ward 2 Etobicoke North with 5,750 votes.

2001

Rob Ford is told he is no longer welcome to coach football at Newtonbrook Secondary School in North York after a heated altercation with a player.

August

Rookie councillor Rob Ford makes headlines after it is revealed that he spent just ten dollars of his office budget after six months in office. By contrast, Giorgio Mammoliti, the biggest spender on council, spent $43,150.

2002

March 6

Councillor Rob Ford allegedly calls Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti a “Gino boy.”

2003

November 10

Rob Ford is re-elected in Ward 2 with 79 percent of the vote.

2005

Rob and Renata Ford have a daughter, Stephanie.

March 31

Kathy Ford is accidentally shot in the head at her parents’ home by her boyfriend, Scott MacIntyre.

July 19

Councillor Rob Ford calls Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby a “waste of skin.” She calls him a “jerk.”

2006

April 15

Security removes Rob Ford from a Toronto Maple Leafs NHL game after he drunkenly berates a couple in the crowd. When news of the incident breaks, Ford initially lies and says he wasn’t at the game. He later admits to having been there and apologizes.

June 28

During a council debate on grants for AIDS programs, Rob Ford says, “If you’re not doing needles and you’re not gay, you won’t get AIDS, probably.”

September 22

Doug Ford Sr. dies of cancer at the age of seventy-three.

November 13

Rob Ford is re-elected in Ward 2 with 66 percent of the vote.

2007

March 7

Rob Ford tells council that cycling in a bike lane is like swimming with sharks. “Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. Not for people on bikes. And, you know, my heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”

2008

Rob and Renata Ford have their second child, a son named Douglas.

March 5

Rob Ford controversially suggests that “Oriental” people are “slowly taking over” because they work so hard. “Those Oriental people work like dogs,” he says.

March 26

Rob Ford is arrested and charged with domestic assault and threatening death against his wife, Renata. The charges are later dropped due to inconsistencies in Renata Ford’s testimony.

2010

March 25

Rob Ford declares his candidacy for mayor.

June 17

News breaks that Rob Ford offered to help a man named Dieter Doneit-Henderson “score” OxyContin on the street. Doneit-Henderson secretly recorded their phone conversation.

August 18

The
Toronto Sun
reports that Rob Ford was charged with marijuana possession in Florida a decade earlier. The drunk driving charge comes out. Ford apologizes for his mistakes and his poll numbers go up.

August 25

City council orders Rob Ford to repay $3,150 he solicited from lobbyists for his private football foundation.

October 25

Rob Ford is elected mayor with 383,501 votes, or 47 percent of the total cast.

December 7

Hockey personality Don Cherry criticizes “pinkos” in a speech at Rob Ford’s inauguration ceremony.

2011

May 13

Toronto’s audit committee votes to review Rob Ford’s campaign expenses.

October 24

The mayor calls 911 after a comedian from CBC’s
This Hour Has 22 Minutes
shows up in his driveway.

December 30

The
Toronto Star
reveals police have been called to the mayor’s home for a handful of domestic incidents in recent months.

2012

January 11

Kathy Ford’s estranged boyfriend, Scott MacIntyre, is arrested after walking into the mayor’s home, demanding Rob Ford pay back money MacIntyre says he is owed, and then threatening to kill him.

January 17

City council revolts against the mayor’s budget cuts in a 23–21 vote.

February 7

Mayor Rob Ford speaks, and then votes, on a motion to overturn the order requiring him to pay back $3,150 in football donations.

March 12

Lawyer Clayton Ruby announces he is filing a conflict-of-interest lawsuit against the mayor because of the February 7 vote. Ruby argues that Rob Ford broke the law when he spoke to, and then voted on, an item at council where he stood to benefit financially.

March 17

On St. Patrick’s Day, Rob Ford spends the night partying with friends, first at City Hall and then at a downtown bar called the Bier Markt. A waiter at the Bier Markt thinks he might have seen the mayor snort cocaine in a private room. A member of Ford’s staff later tells police he thought he saw Ford take an OxyContin pill.

May 2

Rob Ford confronts
Toronto Star
reporter Daniel Dale in a public park behind his home.

November 26

A judge concludes that Rob Ford did violate the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. He orders Ford out of office.

2013

January 25

Rob Ford wins his conflict-of-interest appeal on a technicality. He remains as mayor.

February 23

The mayor shows up at a military ball impaired.

He is asked to leave by a member of the organizing committee.

March 7

Former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson accuses the mayor of groping her at an event.

March 26

The
Toronto Star
reports that the mayor’s staff want him to seek treatment for an alcohol issue. The paper reveals that Ford had been asked to leave the military ball after showing up “intoxicated.” The mayor calls the paper “pathological liars.”

May 16

The
Toronto Star
and Gawker reveal that Mayor Rob Ford has been filmed smoking what looks like crack cocaine. A drug dealer tried to sell the footage to both outlets for one hundred thousand dollars. Both publications reveal a photo of Ford standing in front of a yellow-brick house alongside three young men, one of whom had recently been shot dead. (The house would later be revealed as 15 Windsor Road, a suspected crack den.)

May 24

After eight days, the mayor makes an official first statement about the video story: “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine.” Rob Ford blames the
Star
for going after him.

May 25

The Globe and Mail
publishes a story that alleges Councillor Doug Ford Jr. was a hash dealer in high school. The mayor’s brother denies this.

June 1

An Ipsos Reid poll shows that half of Toronto residents don’t believe the video story.

June 13

Police across Ontario launch a series of pre-dawn raids as part of Project Traveller, a massive investigation into drug and gun smuggling. The dealer who tried to sell the
Star
and Gawker the video is arrested, as are the two surviving men pictured alongside Ford in the infamous 15 Windsor Road photo.

August 16

The
Star
reports that Alexander “Sandro” Lisi, a friend of, and occasional driver for, the mayor, is under police investigation for trying to obtain the video.

October 1

Sandro Lisi is arrested and charged with drug offences, including trafficking marijuana. His arrest is part of a covert police investigation dubbed Project Brazen 2, a probe aimed at the mayor’s activities.

October 31

On the day that hundreds of pages of search warrant documents connected to Project Brazen 2 are released—documents that show suspicious package handoffs between Sandro Lisi and Rob Ford—Police Chief Bill Blair reveals that Toronto police have recovered the “crack video.” Lisi is charged with extortion in connection with attempts to recover the video.

November 5

Rob Ford admits to having smoked crack while in “one of my drunken stupors.” He says he won’t resign or take health leave.

November 7

A second video of Rob Ford surfaces. The mayor appears impaired and in a rage, pacing around a room and punching the air, saying, “I’m gonna kill that fucking guy. I’m telling you, it’s first-degree murder.” The mayor maintains he will not resign.

November 18

Toronto City Council strips Mayor Rob Ford of most of his powers, reducing his budget, staff, and authority to develop policy. The mayor declares “war.”