So, it would appear that the lines between city business and campaigning were pretty blurry in the mayor’s office. (No, that’s not a crack about crack.)
Nearly 2,000 pages of documents from the mayor’s office were released Friday – thanks to a Freedom of Information request by erstwhile mayoral candidate David Soknaki.
There is a great deal that is inane in this tome. But there are a handful of emails that call into question Mayor Ford’s boast that he’s taking care of taxpayers’ money.
Email exchanges from early 2014 make it abundantly clear campaign business was being supported, co-ordinated or conducted by the mayor’s staff.
In a January 22 email exchange Chief of Staff Dan Jacobs tells the mayor’s press secretary Amin Massoudi that “the rules for robo calls require a full mailing address to be included”.
On January 31, Jacobs is co-ordinating details of a candidates’ debate at Ryerson University.
On February 4, one of the mayor’s policy advisors emails details to Jacobs and Massoudi about plans to produce “a campaign show for the mayor.”
On February 6, the Integrity Commissioner’s Office receives an informal complaint that the mayor and his staff were misusing the city’s social media accounts to promote Ford Nation.
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On February 11, Jacobs tells a fellow staff via email that he can’t set up campaign related matters but in the same line refers the matter to “Cllr Ford’s office.” The problem is that’s not the campaign office. It’s a city facility.
On February 18, Massoudi sends an email to staff, copying the Integrity Commissioner, confirming “The Mayor’s Office has agreed to distance itself from the Ford Nation YouTube endeavour.”
The clear implication is that the mayor’s staff had been involved in and supported the YouTube channel.
There was also a January 12 email exchange among Councillor Doug Ford, Dan Jacobs and Toronto SUN reporter Jenny Yuen. Yuen had asked why the mayor was at MUZIK, a night club on the CNE grounds. She asked whether it was “an election stop.”
Doug Ford’s answer was all at once defensive, accusatory and revealing.
“I can not (sic) confirm until I speak to him. (Rob) Let me assure you every stop is an election stop. Including other events he has gone to all weekend. Is there a problem with Muzik?? I am sure the people that go there vote as well. Do you have a problem with Muzik or people that go there. Should the Mayor not go to Muzik?”
Tone aside, the email makes it clear that the mayor was campaigning – even if it appeared to be on his own time. It blurs the lines considerably when Doug Ford had repeatedly made the point the media shouldn’t be concerned with the mayor was doing on his own time.
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