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Duly Quoted: Rob Ford

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“I will be asking for a minimum of $5 million or as much as $10 million—something that’s realistic…. I think $5 million would hire a lot of officers and it would make this city a lot safer. We would get these guns and gangs off our streets…. [With these other social programs], you’re throwing a lot of money at it, but at the end of the day you can’t measure exactly how many people are being helped by it. I don’t want to throw good money after bad…. I’ve never said all the programs are useless—I just want to see measurements; I want to see results.”

—Mayor Rob Ford speaking to AM640 this morning, in anticipation of a meeting this afternoon with Police Chief Bill Blair and Premier Dalton McGuinty regarding a recent spate of shootings in Toronto. Ford has consistently voted against funding for community grants, and against money offered by other levels of government for anti-gang programs, both as mayor and when he was a city councillor.

Comments

  • Vampchick21

    Dude, you did. You called them “hug-a-thug programs” and were quoted to that effect in every piece of media following your foot in mouth implosion. Don’t think we the public are stupid. We aren’t. If you regret your words spoken in the heat of the moment or are reeling from the backlash, man up and say you regret speaking the way you did. Is that so damned hard?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Paul/100002519071197 William Paul

      maybe hug-a-thug is the wrong wording, but I am sick and tired of everyone patting them on the head, oh, you were beaten as a child, oh, you missed out on ice cream in grade 6 and so on. BS! We ahem to start treating these monsters as such. I don’t care what rock they crawled out from, or what colour they are, and please, please do not use the word POOR… so frisking what! Just because you are poor does not mean it is understandable that you shoot wildly at huge parties and don’t care who you hit. If you carry a gun it is loaded. If you carry a loaded gun the only reason would be to possibly shoot someone. If you carry a loaded gun you should be in jail for life. I would have no problem art all using my hard earned tax money to pay for this!

      • OgtheDim

        What Ford is against is social programs. He calls them hug a thug.

        Mind you, he runs a social program and has been to court on behalf of one of the kids in that program.

        Seems to be that if its football, and funded without public money, its ok to hug a thug.

      • Anonymous

        We all know your an asshat already from your previous posts. like I told you before, grow up in a ghetto then come talk. being a condescending asshole isn’t helpful to any conversation regarding poverty.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Paul/100002519071197 William Paul

          there YOU go again.. bring up the ghetto. Well, F**k the ghetto. Another excuse. Nobody told you you were great today? They didn’t tell you your opinions matter and your just as good as the next guy? Are justifying that it’s ok to be a drug dealer because you experienced the ‘ghetto’??? give your head a shake man. Be a man. Quit passing the blame. Be a man. Take some personal responsibility. The world does not owe you a life. Creat one.

          • Vampchick21

            And that is the point of social programs. What part of that is so hard for you to grasp? Or are you truely a hard core, toss em all in jail, pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of neo-con?

          • Anonymous

            He’s been spamming the EXACT same posts on several sites and facebook groups.

            /methinks William Paul is an astroturfer

          • Vampchick21

            Or a heartless, thoughtless neo-con who does whatever they can to dehumanize an entire segment of the poplulation and tar them all with the same brush. Probably believes in the existance of Welfare Queens too.

          • Anonymous

            And you really have to wonder about someone who has obviously such a vested interest that he spends the better part of his life delivering this hateful message.

          • Anonymous

            LOLWUT?!

            what does one’s sexual anatomy have to do with anything?

            Your comments are astoundingly anti-social (pathological, even). I mean, fuck dude – ice cream? A pat on the back?! Holy shit! How come none of the “intelligent” people thought of that? You’re so smart!!!

          • Anonymous

            It seems you don’t want to address any of the known material reasons people turn to crime so you can dismiss outreach/at-risk social programs as self-esteem massaging and entitlement training.

            Which means you’re talking out of your ass.

          • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

            You know you can just type “fuck”, right? The comment system generously lets you sabotage your own arguments by substituting profanity for reason.

      • Vampchick21

        Dude, pay close attention. I’ll try to use easy words so you’ll understand. Social Programs help to prevent kids from joining gangs BEFORE they join. AKA, stops it before it starts. Don’t be a Ford.

      • http://twitter.com/City_Mayor Mare Ford

        Sounds like William Paul supports banning handguns. Is this what the people want? Let me run this up the ladder and see what kind of reaction it gets.

  • OgtheDim

    Measurements?

    Does TAVIS do measurements?

    • Vampchick21

      It’s almost endearing, how the English language eludes his tounge daily.

  • Asdf

    Don’t you guys get it? He needs more officers to run the gang-bangers out of the 416… literally revoke their 416 citizenship. Round them up and drop them off to the 905 once convicted of gang-related crimes. They will have such a hard time commuting back into the downtown core on public transit that they will be forced to get jobs to afford a car and whats better than a social program? Get them jobs! This has been very clearly laid out. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t understand this?

    • Anonymous

      Maybe their brothers will get them all a Cadillac Escalade, just as Rob’s brothers did for him.

  • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

    TPS has 5598 officers, and a 4th-class constable makes $59,574. $5 million would hire 83 officers for 1 year, for a transient 1.5% increase in the force. “At the end of the day you can’t measure exactly how many people are being helped by [that]. [We] don’t want to throw good money after bad…. [We] just want to see measurements; [we] want to see results.”

  • guest

    I know it’s not productive to say so, but Ford’s an asshole. Sorry, and thanks.

  • Anonymous

    The sequence of what RoFo says and does is baffling.

    He’s the only member of council to vote *against* the receipt of $350,000 from the federal government’s National Crime Prevention Centre to go towards social programs for high-risk youth.

    He persuaded council to *freeze* hiring of new police officers for two years. Now he wants $5-10 million to hire more police. [Source: http://bit.ly/MWOvzB (And “no BS”.)

    He calls any program geared towards at-risk youth a “hug a thug” program, indicating he has zero clue what the term “at risk” means.

    Then he claims, repeatedly, that there’s no measurement in any of these programs, and that they don’t produce jobs (even given that “jobs” are not the sole point or measure of success of these programs) and is instantly rebutted by someone who has of course done tons of research into these programs, and says that this is not what they found at all. [Source: http://bit.ly/MWOvzB

    His lack of familiarity with actual facts is honestly staggering.

    • http://twitter.com/torontomyway Toronto My Way
      • Anonymous

        Enough spam.

        • http://twitter.com/torontomyway Toronto My Way

          My research is not spam. It is constructive contribution to the conversation. I don’t use a url shortener so people can see where the link is leading, don’t want to read and be informed, don’t click on it.

          • Anonymous

            Posting your link without comment is not a constructive contribution, it’s spam.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Paul/100002519071197 William Paul

            “My research is not spam” wrong. SPAM. as tyrannosaurus_rek said: not a constructive contribution at all.

          • Vampchick21

            What folks are objecting to is the manner in which you contribute to the conversation in here. We don’t mind links to the information, but a little actual ‘talk’ before the link would be nice. Actually ‘speaking’ to somoene and addressing their own post right here before you link would be nice. Get what I’m saying?

  • Anonymous

    I will be asking for a minimum of $5 million or as much as $10 million—something that’s realistic”

    I think something that’s realistic is having a plan. Then you can estimate how much money you need. Clearly there is no plan here.

  • guest

    In my opinion, this is by far, by FAR, the most embarrassing, ignorant, and *harmful* BS to fall from Ford’s lips since he became mayor, and I am SO angry that someone so small and mean has been allowed to reach his level of power.

    • http://paul.kishimoto.name Paul Kishimoto

      Put that anger in a jar, and once people start talking about the 2014 election, open it up and share it with absolutely everyone you know. Ask them to remember to vote.

  • Simon Carr

    His new team, who will report personally to him via giant telescreen, will be named ACTION FORCE. It’ll be awesome. The headbands and survival knives have already been ordered.

  • Anonymous

    “A lot safer”? We need exact numbers, Rob, don’t want to throw good money after bad. So how much safer?

  • OgtheDim

    So he got the money, but we already had the money. So, its not new money, just money that is now permanent, whatever that means.

    So what Ford got we already had.

    Winning……….

    • Vampchick21

      And you just know he’ll spin it as a win for Ford Nation. And Ford Nation, being unable to look into things for themselves, will believe him.

      • Anonymous

        Toronto is Ford Nation, that’s why he was elected mayor. Have there been any polls conducted this spring/summer on satisfaction with Ford’s performance?

        • Anonymous
          • Anonymous

            Thanks, glad to see those numbers. Two more years, though…

        • Anonymous

          Toronto has never been Ford Nation – he got less than half the popular vote, with just over half of all eligible voters showing up. So about a quarter of (electoral) Toronto is Ford Nation – and that number is falling.

          • Anonymous

            The half of all eligible voters that didn’t show up, none of them were Ford supporters — how do you know that?

            Generally, the candidate with the most support is the one that wins an election. What Toronto needs to do is come up with a candidate that can beat Ford next time because it is embarrassing that a fat buffoon is at the helm of Canada’s largest city.

  • Esra

    Did he cut internet access in his office in an attempt to cut gravy? I’m pretty sure a lot of the questions he has about the efficacy of social programs, whether or not you can ban people from your city, and, say, transcripts from his radio call-ins, can be found with a simple Google search.

    • Anonymous

      He’s not good with the internet machines.

      • Eric S. Smith

        Also, this solution implies literacy.

    • Vampchick21

      I think he considers ‘the googles’ to be the domain of the elitist, latte sipping downtowners.

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