Unofficial results Monday night showed the next mayor of Toronto would be John Tory, who topped fellow Progressive Conservative Doug Ford in a race that was upended earlier this year when Ford's scandal-ridden brother, incumbent mayor Rob Ford, left the race after being diagnosed with cancer.
After that announcement, Doug Ford stepped up to run for mayor in his brother's place, while Rob Ford ran for his brother's council seat. He kept that council seat on Monday night, winning 59 percent of the vote for the position his family has held since the ward was created in 2000.
The Toronto Globe and Mail reports:
" 'I am humbled and honoured by the trust that has been put into me,' Mr. Tory told supporters after his opponents had conceded.
" 'As your new mayor, I will move Toronto not right, not left, but forward ... Torontonians want to see an end to the division that has paralyzed city hall the past few years.' "
Rob Ford's four years as Toronto's mayor were tumultuous, marked by confrontational politics and increasingly erratic public and private behavior that culminated in his admission that he had smoked crack cocaine. After several more embarrassing public moments, the City Council voted to strip him of most of his mayoral powers.
"After a chaotic session that saw Mayor Rob Ford lash out at the public and topple a colleague, the Toronto City Council voted to strip Ford of most of his duties and slashed his budget to 40 percent of what it used to be.
"As the council discussed the legality of the motion on Monday, the body erupted into chaos. At one point, Ford and his brother Doug Ford, a council member, started screaming at the public. ...
"All of this comes, of course, after Ford admitted to smoking crack and then faced an unrelenting set of allegations, including that he drove drunk, sexually harassed one of his staff members and that he was seen doing lines of cocaine at a bar. As Saturday Night Live made clear in its sketch about the mayor, Ford has not helped his own cause, holding one outrageous news conference after another."
Despite his demotion from mayor to city councilman, Ford suggested his political career would recover, the Globe and Mail reports:
" 'If you know anything about the Ford family, we never, ever, ever give up,' he told his cheering supporters. 'I guarantee, in four more years, you're going to see another example of the Ford family never, ever, ever giving up.'
"Asked after his speech if he planned to run for mayor in 2018, Rob Ford said it was too soon to say."
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