Watch the video above: Satirical signs posted around the city, mocking Mayor Rob Ford. Sean Mallen reports
TORONTO – An Anything But Ford campaign has started.
Dubbed No Ford Nation, the grassroots campaign is seeking to replace Rob Ford with just about anybody.
“We wanted to highlight the fact that he’s just inappropriate as a mayor. Period. All stop,” campaign founder Christina Robins said in a telephone interview Monday. “And we can do better.”
Robins is actively campaigning against Ford and the group has started putting up posters around the city. The first round of posters feature a fictional candidate purporting to be just a bit better behaving than Ford.
One, at Trinity Bellwoods Park, reads: “Elect Jeff McElroy. He promises to just smoke pot as mayor, not crack.”
All the posters finish with “Anyone’s better than Rob Ford.”
“Look at how low he set the bar,” Robins said. “Is this really what you want for mayor?”
The campaign posters and videos are being funded by Rethink – the firm responsible for a cheeky ad during the Sochi Olympics that criticized Russia’s anti-gay stance.
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The No Ford Nation Facebook page has actually been active since February 2011. Robins started the page after the city released the KPMG report that suggested a number of services that could be cut.
She would post media reports, news updates, news from city council and information about what’s happening in the city.
“I just really wanted people to know what’s going on in their city,” she said.
She didn’t think Ford’s tenure would turn into one dominated by scandals ranging from an ongoing police investigation, to crack smoking and public comments about oral sex.
But she also took exception to what she described as the divisive politics of Ford nation.
“To be called a downtown, latte-sipping, elite over and over again by people who drive Cadillacs? It kind of gets in your craw,” she said.
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