Come see the Rob Ford Follies

Tabatha Southey, Opinion, The Globe and Mail:

I was at a party last week in New York when a man asked where I’m from, and I responded, “Toronto.”

“Oh, the city with the really embarrassing mayor,” the man said to me, and for a second I felt shame. And then it occurred to me that many cities pay to obtain that kind of international brand recognition.

We’re stuck with this mayor for over two years more. But it needn’t be all bad. I hereby invite the rest of Canada, and indeed the world, to visit Toronto, the City with the World’s Most Embarrassing Mayor! Forgo your drive to the Reversing Falls: Imagine the children’s wonder at the Reversing Council, a place where the mayor has lost so much support that nothing ever stays decided! I love your Giant Nickel, Sudbury, Ont. But come and see Toronto’s Actual-Sized Nickel – it represents how much the mayor wants to spend on daycare spaces! Imagine the thrill of, for a small fee, having your own expert commission overridden by the mayor’s brother’s plan for a giant Ferris wheel! Stay a week and have our mayor insult you in newspapers and on local radio! Or attend the Official Weighing of the Mayor – an actual event wherein, in the hopes of getting a rare, short statement from their highest elected municipal official, qualified journalists stand around and watch him perform one aspect of his personal toilette.

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