He had been in palliative care for the past few days. He was diagnosed with abdominal cancer in the fall of 2014.
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LOSS OF POWERS- Nov. 18, 2013: City council votes by a wide margin to slash Ford’s mayoral budget and hand many of his duties to the deputy mayor.
At the height of the scandal it seemed the world was focused on Ford, and with all eyes on Toronto for all the wrong reasons, Ford’s legacy won’t ever burn bright.
His successor as Toronto mayor, John Tory, also responded to the controversial politician’s death.
“The true legacy of Rob Ford is that he identified a freakish longing in the populations of rich cities with dysfunctional governments, and that longing is much more evident in the United States than in Canada right now”, said his Esquire item.
Mr Ford was insulting spectators in the council chamber, threatening “murder” in a profane, incoherent rant captured by video. He later won the case on appeal.
The drug story not only made Ford an worldwide celebrity and the object of mockery on late-night talk shows, but also triggered a criminal investigation, which eventually led police to acquire a copy of the video.
A National Public Radio headline referred to him as, “Toronto’s Infamous Former Mayor”.
But barely six months later, Ford announced that doctors had found another tumor near his bladder. In November of that year, amid calls for him to resign, he finally confessed to smoking crack cocaine. “I have been at the hospital for the last five days and nights by his side”, he said.
The admission renewed calls for Ford to step down and turned him into a target for comedians.
No charges were brought against him. Ford and crack cocaine Ford controversy included lies about public behavior, racial slurs, refusing to attend Gay Pride, and off-color remarks about women.
Ford casts his ballot in advance voting for the Toronto Municipal Election at an Etobicoke polling station on Tuesday October 14, 2014. He was a strong candidate for re-election, according to the Toronto Star.
After serving a decade as councilor, Ford was sworn in as the city’s 64th mayor and represented Toronto on an worldwide scale for four years.
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As Ford family representatives confirmed he had died at 46, breaking news notices were tweeted along with short obituaries from the BBC and Reuters and the term “Rob Ford” became a trending topic on Facebook and Twitter.
