Audit of Rob Ford’s campaign finances finds he overspent, accepted corporate cheques

TORONTO – An audit released Friday found that Mayor Rob Ford spent more than the allowable limit in an election campaign.

“In our opinion, the Canadidate’s campaign expenses subject to limitation exceeded the authorized limit by $40,168, or by approximately 3% as set out in Schedule 1. This is an apparent contravention of Subsection 76(4) of the act,” the audit report reads.

Unrecorded expnses and the re-allocation of costs contributed to the overspending, according to the report.

The report also found that Ford’s campaign accepted 11 cheques totalling $6,000 from corporations – something which is prohibited by the municipal elections act.

The audit was launched in February 2011 after a pair of Torontonians – Max Reed and Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler – alleged Ford violated municipal campaign finance laws during his successful 2010 mayoral campaign.

“It’s an outright political attack,” Councillor Doug Ford said Friday prior to the audit beind released. “They’re trying everything they can to take down Rob Ford. They want to politically kill him. Ok. They want to politically kill him. That’s how much they despise Rob Ford.”

Councillor Ford suggested it was the mayor’s ‘stopping the gravy train’ that is motivating these people to bring allegations against the mayor and his supporters.

“Why do they despise Rob Ford? Because he’s outsourced the garbage, cut back on union jobs, he’s reduced the size and cost of government, he’s saved a billion dollars,” Councillor Ford said. “These special interest groups that are out there sticking their hands in the taxpayers’ pockets. He’s cut them off. They want to kill Rob Ford. They want to kill him for the next two years.”

A three-person committee will take the first step in deciding his punishment.

The committee will first decide whether or not to appoint a special prosecutor that could lay non-criminal charges against the mayor.

Removal from office, a fate Ford has already tempted, is one possible punishment.