The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

A young protestor at the rally to restore funding for refugee health care. Photo by Desmond Cole/Torontoist.

Approximately 300 protestors gathered near the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration office at St. Clair and Yonge Monday afternoon, to demand an end to recent refugee health care cuts—part of a national day of action that saw nearly 20 rallies take place across the country. Scores of doctors, nurses, and health care practitioners attended in medical scrubs and lab coats. Refugee advocacy groups and other concerned residents joined them to decry the anniversary of government cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program, a vital resource for resettled refugees and refugee claimants living in Canada.

The IFH program provided basic, temporary health care services for refugees, including maternal care and coverage for medication. In explaining the rationale for the program, the Ontario Medical Association has warned that “if a patient has a complex condition and doesn’t receive care because they don’t have health coverage or can’t afford it, treatment will cost the province more in the long run.”

The OMA also says that denying refugees timely access to care puts a strain on emergency medical services as those without health care become more seriously ill. In an apparent response to this fear, the federal government has maintained coverage only for medications which are seen to pose a risk to public health.

Dr. Hasan Sheikh, a family physician in Toronto, condemned the federal Conservative government for forcing doctors to violate their professional oaths. “In medical school, I was taught to treat disease, regardless of where a patient is from,” Sheihk told the crowd. He and several other speakers spoke of the impact of the cuts, not only on refugee health but on Canada’s longstanding reputation as a safe haven.

“We are dismayed, ashamed, and angry at the cuts to healthcare for refugees,” said physician (and Giller Prize-winning novelist) Dr. Vincent Lam, whose family fled from Vietnam shortly after that country’s war. “We must make concrete demonstrations of our commitment to the vulnerable and the weak, and that includes the refugees amongst us,” Lam said.

Citizenship and Immgration minister Jason Kenney at various times denied his government cut the IFH program, or has alternately suggested the cuts were necessary to save money and revoke “gold-plated benefits” from fraudulent refugee claimants. (His office did not respond to our request for comment on the IFH program or the public protests.)

Medical professionals told stories of vulnerable refugee claimants, particularly pregnant women, children, and elderly people, who have been unable to access timely health care because of the IFH cuts. Refugees themselves, however, did not speak at the demonstration. Dr. Sandy Buchman of the College of Family Physicians of Canada explained that “refugee claimants to this country, due to their realistic fear and their vulnerability, cannot speak for themselves, so we must speak up for them.”

Roseanne Hickey, a health practitioner and LAMP Community Health Centre in Mississauga, came with her colleagues to be part of the protest. “This is a country that signed on in to provide basic health care to people who arrive as refugee claimants,” Hickey said in reference to Canada’s ratification of the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. “It’s ridiculous to create different classes of eligibility based on a person’s country of origin, without fair process, and without a hearing,” Hickey added.

“I understand there is some abuse in the system,” said another participant, Matt Kennedy, a medical student at the University of Toronto. “But I would prefer to err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt, rather than cutting the program for everyone,” Kennedy added.

The demonstration ended with a fiery speech by Angela Roberston, the executive director of the Central Toronto Community Health Centres. Robertson condemned Kenney and the government not only for the refugee health care cuts, but for changes to refugee protections under Bill C-31 which she attributed to a sharp decline in refugee claims. Roberston then invited participants to face the federal building and join in singing the national anthem. “The principles that are held in this anthem belong to us, and we will not have you abuse it to deny care to refugees.”

Rob and Doug Ford in the studio. Photo courtesy of Newstalk 1010.

It’s another installment of our favourite radio show, folks! Will Rob and Doug discuss last week’s epic police raid that may have turned up evidence related to Rob’s alleged drug use? Will they discuss why they voted against allowing permanent residents the right to vote in municipal elections? Or maybe they’ll discuss how to achieve solutions beyond talking points when it comes to Toronto’s beleaguered housing agency, TCHC? Nope! They’ll talk about how they don’t like the media.

1:07: Rob and Doug quickly brush aside an unfortunate incident on Saturday, when the mayor was allegedly splashed with an unknown liquid (possibly juice) by a woman at the Taste of Little Italy festival. It’s good to see them take it in stride, but they shouldn’t have to. People, don’t throw things at the mayor or pour liquid on him. Unless he just won a football game and you’re on his team, in which case a Gatorade shower is cool.

1:09: Doug discusses his and Rob’s experience at the Taste of Little Italy festival on Saturday. According to Doug, the number one comment at the festival was “Bleep the Star,” which sounds like the strangest Family Feud response ever.

1:11: After announcing their Father’s Day plans, Doug jokes he wants to know how Daniel Dale wants his steak done, suggesting the Star reporter—as nice a guy as you’ll find at city hall—will be stalking the family. On Twitter, Dale says he’ll settle for a hamburger.

1:12: Rob says he believes the previous administration didn’t want to do traffic signal co-ordination because it wanted to keep people frustrated in their cars. There you have it folks: David Miller, cartoon villain.

1:14: Doug Ford calls left-wing councillors “poverty pimps,” a favourite phrase of Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy. It’s used to dismiss progressive advocates as being driven by self-serving interests.

1:15: Rob describes his emotional cycle when he encounters TCHC residents who aren’t being served well. He says he gets sad, then angry, then mad, and then tries to solve the problem. Being Rob Ford is complicated.

1:17: Doug calls Rob the most accessible politician. This doesn’t explain the bizarre sight of the mayor running through parking lots and hotel kitchens in an effort to avoid questions from reporters about whether he has used illicit substances in the past six months or is connected to shootings and crack houses.

1:20: Doug criticizes Global News for calling out the Fords on their claim that they’ve saved taxpayers a billion dollars, which they haven’t. I await Raccoon Nation’s shout-out next show.

1:21: After completing his billion dollar talking point/lie, Doug quotes the esteemed Don Cherry, saying, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Doug, please choose your words more carefully.

1:38: Doug’s wife Karly calls in to wish the councillor a happy Father’s Day, but she leaves the radio on in the background, which makes it difficult to hear her. Doug says when he gets home he’ll explain to her how to make a call to the radio show. Sigh.

1:40: Rob’s wife Renata calls in, and his two children, Stephanie and Doug Jr., sing “Happy Birthday” with “Father’s Day” as a substitute. It’s a reminder of Ford’s humanity, and it makes the current allegations all the more troubling and sad.

1:41: Rob and Doug announce the first-ever Scarborough Ford Fest, which will be on July 5 at Thomson Memorial Park, and which will feature free food, beverages, and unnamed amusement rides. Raccoon Nation is also invited to attend the free event, although I’d recommend eating beforehand as the food lineups tend to be long.

1:43: Robert on line one wants Doug to run provincially, and thinks the ward two councillor can deliver 15 conservative seats in Toronto. Robert on line one is a very hopeful conservative. For his part, Doug says he thinks he’s more suited for provincial politics.

1:47: Our caller on line two thinks it’s not the Fords who are making Toronto an international embarrassment, but the media. She singles out CTV’s Ken Shaw and Lisa LaFlamme and the Toronto Star‘s John Cruickshank for what she perceives as unfair coverage. Really? Lisa LaFlamme?

Doug mentions Katie Simpson for some reason too, and adds that LaFlamme and Michael Cooke, the Star‘s editor, used to date. The conspiracy grows.

1:57: Caller Ed thinks Rob needs a security detail when he goes around the city, and Doug agrees. Rob concedes that it might be time, although he says so with some hesitation.

2:00: Rosemary on line five thinks reporters are bullies, and she plans to run for council in Etobicoke-Lakeshore (she did not specify which ward). Okay, new rule: asking the mayor questions about whether he is connected to multiple shootings while the police chief refuses to deny the possibility does not constitute bullying.

2:08: Caller Rob from North York was a campaign volunteer for Rob in the last election, and he asks about garbage. He wants garbage privatized east of Yonge Street like it is west, and asks if that will be part of the Ford platform. Conveniently, it will be!

2:10: Sharif on line two tells the Fords to keep doing what they’re doing. I think it’s a safe bet that they will.

2:12: Eric tells Rob to keep up the good work, and that he can’t wait for the day when the mayor “crushes his enemies” at City Hall. That’s right, the mayor is just biding his time, and then BOOM, he’ll use his political ninja skills to earn everyone’s respect.

2:13: Angela has a problem with yard waste being put out too early. Rob says he’ll go out to her street and tell people to stop. This sounds like the least cost-effective way of solving this problem.

2:19: Doug says he hit the wrong button when he voted against a motion that supported reducing the size of city council at last week’s council meeting. It’s something that happens to lots of different councillors, and is perfectly plausible in this instance.

2:29: Caller Peter fell down recently and needed an ambulance, but says he was more irritated by potholes on the way to the hospital than his injury.

2:37: Caller John compliments Rob and Doug on the great job they’re doing, particularly under “moronic circumstances.” He says he’s a good judge of character, and he knows who the bums are, and it’s not them. I won’t argue with John, because he sounds scary.

2:38: Caller Rob in Scarborough—the third Rob who has called in today—thinks the mayor is great, because he’s the only mayor to do house calls.

2:40: Dan says he knows the Ford family, and he’s sick about how the mayor is blamed for everything. Dan’s right. It’s like the Bible says: don’t throw rocks if you live in glass pipes. Or something.

2:42: James on line three wants to redevelop the waterfront, and Doug says that’s his specialty. Doug asks where Waterfront Toronto’s initial $1 billion has gone, supplying more evidence that he doesn’t know what’s happening on the waterfront.

2:44: Paul says Rob and Doug don’t toot their own horns enough, so he’ll do it for them. Rob says the Fords are a humble family and that’s just who they are, and Doug thanks Paul for the kind words.

3:00: And God bless Ford Nation, says Doug.

Well, it’s been another week of the Ford radio show. There was likely a record number of callers—around a dozen—and despite Doug insisting they don’t screen calls, all of them happened to be positive. Once again, no councillors appeared on the show, an absence that has persisted ever since “Crackstarter” entered our vocabularies, and Doug said lots of Doug-like Dougisms. So it was an okay show. As always, God bless you Raccoon Nation, and thanks for reading. Three out of five slurpees.

Matt Galloway: Is Rob Ford under investigation?

Bill Blair:
“Again, I’m not going to comment on this or any other investigation. We will do our work, we will present our evidence in the appropriate forum. The truth will come out.

Galloway: Yesterday you could have very easily exonerated Rob Ford—you could have explicitly said the mayor has nothing to do with the investigation we’re involved in right now. Why didn’t you do that?

Blair:
I’m unable to answer your question without violating the terms of the law and the spirit of the law. All of the information, all of the evidence we have collected…will be properly disclosed in a court of law.

—Toronto police chief Bill Blair on CBC’s Metro Morning, commenting on yesterday’s major police action in the neighbourhood where Rob Ford allegedly smoked crack cocaine. Blair emphasized that he was distinguishing between serving the public interest (trying to get guns and drugs off the streets and keep a neighbourhood safe) and the interest of the public (namely persistent questions about whether Rob Ford has a substance abuse problem or is other otherwise involved in illicit activity). As a Torontonian he is concerned about the toll the crack allegations are taking on the city and its reputation, Blair said, but as police chief he needs to follow due process and refrain from “indulging myself in hypotheticals or speculation.”

“I believe the mayor will be more comfortable with an all-male cast on executive committee.”

—Jaye Robinson (Ward 25, Don Valley West), speaking to reporters this morning in response to news that Rob Ford had booted her from the cabinet-like executive committee at City Hall. After her departure, executive committee consists of 13 men; by contrast, 15 of 44 councillors are women. Robinson says she was given no reason for the removal, but that she believes it was due both to her publicly calling on the mayor to temporarily step aside and deal with “personal issues” in the wake of crack cocaine allegations, and to a recent dispute with the mayor’s brother, Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North), who falsely said that a meeting was cancelled at City Hall due to Robinson’s absence. She added that it was “absolutely clear” the mayor would not consider taking a leave of absence, and lamented that “it is unfortunate that the mayor no longer seems to have room for a diversity of voices or points of view.” Robinson has been replaced on the committee by a left-leaning member of council, Anthony Perruzza (Ward 8, York West).

In which we highlight key items from the month’s city council meeting. You can also watch it live.

City council is meeting on June 11 and 12. Here are a few items from this month’s agenda that are in the news, or should be.

City council will weigh whether or not to:

Make all sorts of voting reforms.
An issue that has been brewing for a long time, largely due to activist work spearheaded by the groups RaBIT (Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto), Fair Vote Toronto, and I Vote Toronto. Council will debate whether to learn more about several changes to the electoral system, all designed to increase participation rates—to get more people out to the ballot boxes. The measures they may decide to explore further: holding elections on weekends; extending voting rights to permanent residents; switching to a ranked ballot (rather than the current first past the post system); and allowing voters with disabilities to cast ballots online.

Appoint a new CEO to Build Toronto, in defiance of Doug Ford.
Build Toronto is an arm’s-length agency created by the City to manage its extensive real estate assets; its purpose is to manage the ongoing sale of those assets in a way that helps the municipal government meet urban planning needs while also generating substantial revenue. Build’s board is in turmoil—half its seats are vacant—and council will decide at this meeting who they are choosing to fill those seats. The list of recommended candidates is confidential, but the Star obtained a leaked copy; conspicuously absent from it: Michael Kraljevic. Kraljevic is currently chair of the Toronto Port Lands Co., which Doug Ford had wanted to take over development of the Port Lands with a new plan for that neighbourhood. (Remember the Ferris wheel and monorail? That plan.) Essentially, Kraljevic is the administration’s preferred candidate, and his absence from the list of recommended new Build board members means there will be a fight over whether they can get him appointed. That fight will be behind-the-scenes though: debates about all board appointments are confidential.

Let Astral Media put electronic ads on transit shelters.
Right now, only non-electronic advertisements (that is, printed posters) are allowed on the sides of transit shelters, but Astral Media, the company that pays for those shelters, in exchange for the right to profit off the ad space on them, wants to change that. Council will decide whether to allow Astral to install digital screens on transit shelters. These screens would display several different digital ads, one by one—sort of like a slideshow. Astral is also seeking permission to do something it already does from time to time: “creative advertising enhancements” (meaning, they want to be able to glue three-dimensional elements to shelters to make ads more eye-catching). If this item sounds familiar, that’s because it was on the agenda of last month’s meeting: council didn’t get to it in time, and deferred it until now.

Revamp the City’s anti-discrimination policies to target Pride.
In what is becoming an annual tradition, two councillors—James Pasternak (Ward 10, York Centre) and David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale)—are upset about the appearance of a small protest group, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, at the Pride parade. Their concern is with the term “Israeli apartheid” and their strategy has been to try and make Pride’s funding contingent on them keeping this group out of their events. There is, however, no current basis on which they could do so: City staff has examined the issue at length, and have concluded that the term does not violate any human rights or other policy—it’s a bit of language people find uncomfortable, but it isn’t hate speech. To try and get around that, Pasternak and Shiner are trying to rewrite those policies to target “Israeli apartheid” specifically. They also want to limit the City’s funding of Pride so that it specifically does not go to the parade. That last thing is an empty move—the City doesn’t currently fund the parade at all—but expect a major debate about the optics of council declaring that Pride’s funding should be vulnerable.

Study the possibility of changing the boundaries of the City’s wards—and maybe even getting rid of a few.
Every few years the municipal government is required to review its ward boundaries. As the city develops and changes, populations don’t grow evenly—some parts of the city become more dense, and others less so. There’s a policy in place which states that different wards should have roughly equal numbers of residents; it’s a way to try and ensure a fair balance on council, and to give each city councillor a similar number of people to represent. The City will commence its regular review of the ward boundaries shortly, but at this meeting council will debate a particular direction: that they look not just at adjusting the boundaries but reducing the overall number of wards—a campaign promise made by Mayor Rob Ford.

Tell the Toronto Community Housing Corporation to handle evictions in a more reasonable way.
The Toronto Community Housing Corporation, a City-owned provider of social housing, has occasionally come under criticism for evicting vulnerable tenants. In a recent investigation, the City’s ombudsman found that TCHC is still sometimes making questionable evictions, despite earlier promises to reform its process. Council will decide whether to endorse the ombudsman’s recommendations for TCHC, which call for the corporation to be more sensitive to the needs of all its tenants—even those who don’t pay rent on time.

Rob and Doug Ford in the studio. Photo courtesy of Newstalk 1010.

It’s another Rob and Doug Ford radio show! Last week, we learned about someone falling off a fifth-floor balcony in an apartment building where a shooting suspect linked to Rob’s crack scandal used to live. We also found out that Rob was friends with a resident of 15 Windsor Road—a house neighbours allege is a crack den, and where two people were beat up with a steel pipe on May 21. So we’ll probably talk about office expenses or something.

Every Sunday we listen to Rob and Doug’s radio show to make sense of the wild words they give the world. But there’s a certain populist poetry to the Fords’ pandering platitudes, and so this week we present our recap in a medium that captures the fire and ice of The City: free verse.

1:09: $1 billion, folks! The Star lies, but we will not.
We’ve saved the city $1 billion.
Repealed the Vehicle Registration Tax—$200 million
Cut office expenses—$6.4 million
Contracted out garbage—$80 million
Efficiencies—$606 million
Efficiencies, efficiencies, efficiencies, folks.

1:13: The attacks are coming.
It’s $774 million worth of pressure,
the gravy train,
the unions want to kill us.
All because we are so effective.

1:15: It’s the province.
How can Kathleen Wynne be premier, that’s insane.
They waste billions,
They shred documents,
We make them accountable,
That’s us. We are Ford Nation.

1:17: Can you believe Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina).
He says we’re responsible for problems at TCHC.
What a misnomer [sic]. Misnomer [sic], misnomer [sic], misnomer [sic].
We found problems at TCHC.
There were parties, and chocolates, and massages.
Gravy.
What kind of massages? Oh, I don’t know, says the mayor.
Interesting.
If Adam Vaughan wants to debate His Worship anytime, I’m up for it, says Rob.

1:30: Looked at the Dufferin Bridge,
Spoke to the Portuguese Consul General,
Visited community housing.
I had a busy week.
I was here, there, everywhere.
(Except 15 Windsor Rd. We won’t talk about that.)

1:45: Caller Roy says let’s privatize Toronto Hydro.
Rob says
hmmmmmm
hawwwwwww
I’ve thought about that
Maybe 10 per cent?
I’ll call you back by the end of the week and give you an answer.
Customer Service.

1:47: Caller Mike is building a deck. Does he need a permit? Who does he call?
You call me, says the mayor. Just call me.
Customer Service.

2:00: If there’s an event you want me to go to, just ask, folks.
(Except if it features Lady Gaga, Teagan and Sara, and really long acronyms.
Those are confusing, and I might be at the cottage.)
Customer Service.

2:15: The worst thing Toronto has for traffic is streetcars.
Antiquated things, get rid of them all.
Maybe not Spadina or King. You know, for sentimental value.
But let’s get rid of them.
Go underground, it’s a no-brainer.
Subways, subways, subways.

2:20: Rob, If Adam Vaughan wants to rappel
from the roof of city hall
I’ll get him started
without rope.

2:22: Ford Fest.
Fordy, Fordy Ford Fest.
With all the long lineups, Tim Hudak speeches, and Gary Crawford (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest) drum solos you could want.
On July 5, it goes to Scarborough.
We love Scarborough, have we mentioned that?
Please vote for us.

2:25: Can you believe the Woodbine vote?
It’s not even a partisan
Issue
It’s about jobs.
It’s the socialists at City Hall.
I blame them.
We’ll try to re-open this issue Tuesday.
I’m sure this talk will have helped.

2:26: The TCHC scandal from two years ago,
we haven’t spoken about it for an hour.
Let’s read the list of what they gave
employees again. Massage parlour parties?
Massage parlour parties! Oh, you said it this time,
Doug, retract that. Retract! Haha, yeah. Okay, I guess.

2:45: Mark on line five wants the Land Transfer Tax cut.
More than 10 per cent, that’s not enough.
Us real estate investors need more love in this city.
Rob says he understands.
He’ll see what he can do.
Customer Service.

3:00: This has been your weekly jam on your favourite radio station.
And now we bid adieu, and say God bless Ford Nation.

We did it, Raccoon Nation, we found the poetry in The City. Sure, the mayor used the phone lines as a high-level 311 service—when he wasn’t blaming everyone else for the city’s problems, that is—but we got through another week.

Three out of five retractions.

EDITORS’ NOTE JUNE 12: Though we weren’t aware of it when we first published this piece, this isn’t the only instance of rendering Rob Ford’s radio show in verse form. You can see another instance of the genre over at The Barnstormer.

Earlier this week, Rob Ford’s crack scandal was showing signs of blowing over, as exhausted reporters began to give up their vigil outside the mayor’s office at City Hall. How quickly things change. Thanks to some fresh revelations, there’s once again no end in sight.

Gawker, citing information from an unnamed source, has just published an article that reconstructs the sequence of events that supposedly led to the creation of the now-infamous video that allegedly shows Ford smoking crack.

The Gawker article makes the following claims, which we have no way of verifying:

• Ford frequented a home, at 15 Windsor Road in North Etobicoke, that was known to neighbours as “a crackhouse, essentially.”
• Fabio Basso, the son of the owner of the home, is Ford’s longtime friend.
• When visiting, Ford would go on drug “binges” with members of the Basso family in the basement of the home.
• The crack video was recorded six to eight months ago during one of these binges, when drug dealers from the neighbouring apartment building at 320 Dixon Road were called over to supply Ford and others at the Windsor Road house with crack.
• The photo that was published along with the reports about the video by both Gawker and the Toronto Star was taken the same night as the video. Gawker‘s source told the website that the group that brought the drugs over asked for a photo with the mayor. Fabio Basso didn’t want them to take it inside the house, and so “Ford ran outside like a schoolgirl to have that picture taken.”
• Days after Gawker broke the story of the video’s existence, “two large men” went to the home and demanded that Fabio Basso help them find the person who took the video.
• After a few days of repeat visits, one of the men returned to the home and beat Basso and his girlfriend with a steel pipe, putting Basso in the hospital.

Some details of this story are corroborated elsewhere. Both the Globe and the Star have published articles that identify 15 Windsor Road as the address where a photo was taken of Ford with his arms around two men who were later on the wrong end of a shooting. The photo was provided to reporters by the owner of the crack video as a way of establishing his credibility.

The Star‘s article identifies the Basso family as the home’s owners and says the place has a neighbourhood reputation for being somehow involved with the drug trade. The article also clarifies the relationship between Ford and Fabio Basso: they knew each other from high school, it says.

The Star also agrees that police responded to a home invasion and assault at 15 Windsor Road recently—though its article doesn’t mention a steel pipe. A police spokesman told the paper that the attack happened on May 21.

For its part, Gawker says its source knew some now-established details of the case before they were made public, which would seem to vouch for his or her reliability.

Many of the above details have not been confirmed by another source outside of Gawker‘s contact. As more and more articles are published, however, a picture of sorts is slowly coming into focus—not just of one particular moment, but a bigger portrait of the mayor’s alleged ongoing behaviour. Rob Ford continues to refuse to answer questions about the evolving story, and has not yet responded in any way to this latest development.

A screenshot of Gawker‘s Rob Ford Crackstarter campaign.

Gawker editor John Cook—who was the first to publish a story about a cellphone video which apparently shows Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking out of a crack pipe while making racist and homophobic slurs—is now reporting that the video is no longer available.

Cook first described the video in a post published on May 16; that was followed a few hours later by a report from the Toronto Star, in which two of that paper’s reporters described watching the same video. The video’s owner was demanding a six figure sum (first $100,000, then $200,000) in exchange for the footage, both outlets said—an amount the Star declined to pay and that Gawker couldn’t raise on its own. This was followed, in case you haven’t been following all the twists in this particular bit of insanity, by a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money. Seemingly to their surprise, Gawker actually succeeded in raising $200,000 from the public, and has since been trying to reconnect with the video’s owner, via the intermediary who first got in touch with them.

For a while there was silence. And then last Friday, Cook wrote in a post this evening, he heard from the intermediary, who got in touch to say that he had finally heard from the video’s owner. The update? “It’s gone. Leave me alone.”

Cook is attributing this to two things. One is his sense that the video’s owner did not anticipate the epic controversy that would result when news of the video broke. (Um, really?) The second is anger in the Somali community based in Etobicoke, where the video was reportedly shot, in the wake of the Toronto Star‘s rather notable emphasis on the national origins of the people apparently involved. The combination of those two factors, Cook writes, “led the owner of the video to go to ground and soured the owner’s relationship with the intermediary.” He adds that “I have heard independently from others familiar with the goings-on in Toronto that leaders in its Somali community have determined who the owner is and brought intense pressure to bear on him and his family.”

Cook also points out that saying the video is “gone” leaves things up in the air, as it’s unclear whether that means the video was destroyed, obtained by another purchaser, collected by police, or handed over to somebody else for safekeeping. For his part Michael Cooke, editor of the Toronto Star, told a reporter just yesterday that he believes “the video is slowly making its way to daylight.”

Gawker, writes its editor, is still hoping the video will surface, and is still offering the proceeds of its Crackstarter campaign in exchange for the footage. If that doesn’t happen “soon,” however, the website will instead direct the money to a local non-profit that works on substance abuse issues.

So, essentially: a crowdfunded campaign to buy a video showing Toronto’s mayor allegedly smoking crack from unidentified people who have a lot to risk if they are publicly exposed has hit a roadblock. Shocking, we know.

As our current mayor fends off allegations that he smokes crack, what’s the previous mayor up to? Oh, nothing much. Just being named the new president and CEO of WWF-Canada, is all.

David Miller, who decided not to run in the 2010 election, has, since the end of his term, been leading what appears to be a more relaxed existence. He’s kept his hand in local politics, though, by making frequent public appearances and by blogging for the Huffington Post. In 2011, he was the recipient of a “future of cities” fellowship at NYU.

But mainly what he’s been doing is working as international business and sustainability counsel at Aird & Berlis LLP, the law firm he was involved with before getting into politics.

This new gig with WWF-Canada, an NGO that advocates for environmental conservation, is of a piece with Miller’s politics (remember, this is the man who gave us the five-cent fee on plastic shopping bags, among many other environmental initiatives). A WWF-Canada spokesperson says the former mayor is winding down his duties at Aird & Berlis and will have his first day as president on September 3.

All of which makes us wonder what’s in store for Mayor Rob Ford after he’s done with municipal politics (assuming he’s ever done with municipal politics). It has been suggested to us that he’d be perfect as the owner of the Toronto Argonauts.

Rob and Doug Ford in the studio. Photo courtesy of Newstalk 1010.

Oh my, it’s show two since the start of our evolving (alleged) crack scandal. What will happen next? Will Rob unequivocally deny using crack while in office? Will he categorically say he didn’t know where the alleged video was hidden? Will we talk about the serious issues that affect our city and how we can find real solutions? Find out next!

1:07: Rob and Doug spend the first few minutes talking about what’s on everyone’s mind: sports. Rob is excited that the Argos training camp is about to start, and they talk NHL playoffs, Toronto FC, and the Jays, too. These guys sure know how to bury the lede.

1:13: Doug is angry. He says that the same councillors who shout and scream that there’s a crisis at City Hall are happy to go off on a taxpayer-paid trip to Vancouver to stay in a five-star hotel and sip margaritas by the pool. Wait, I’m confused. Aren’t they supposed to sip lattes? And wasn’t this good last fall when a host of councillors went on a Porter-sponsored trip to Chicago, where Rob learned about public art and Manitoba geography? Anyway, Rob and Doug say this is different. Clearly the workplace shouldn’t pay for a work-related visit to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Annual Conference—at least not for all of the 18 councillors who went over the weekend.

Doug argues these councillors are slacking while Rob and Doug are working 18 hours a day. That’s not a typo, he said 18 hours a day, not a week. Dear Doug, the media has been staking out Rob’s office for the past two weeks and the mayor regularly gets in at 1:00 and leaves around 4:30.

1:16: Rob, who was born a multi-millionaire, says if his council colleagues went on their own dime to FCM’s conference, that would be okay.

1:18: Doug somehow transitions to wanting to cut the size of council in half. “I don’t think anyone in Toronto wants more politicians,” he says. If only there were a term for self-hating politicians. Raccoon Nation, you know what to do in the comments.

1:18: While discussing how it would be great to get rid of some lousy councillors, Rob and Doug say “efficiently” a lot, as if practicing a child’s tongue twister.

1:19: Doug incorrectly says each household will pay $1,000 in order to subsidize public transit under Metrolinx’s newly released investment strategy. Rob later repeats the same thing. Except it’s expected to cost $477 per household, and that’s before factoring in the economic benefits associated with investing in transit.

1:22: Rob says he hired four new people—previous media reports had it at three. Doug somehow turns this mass exodus of staffers into a talking point. He says it goes right back to job creation, somehow. Maybe this whole fiasco is a false flag to boost Toronto employment figures ahead of an election. Think it through, sheeple!

1:29: Doug announces a new radio segment called “Setting the Record Straight,” which is totally heterosexual, and no, he won’t be at Pride, thanks for asking.

Doug is angry that, in his view, the Star doesn’t do its due diligence. He points to an article about the mayor’s office ordering emails deleted in an attempt to prevent reporters from getting a hold of them with freedom-of-information requests.

But Doug says there was no order, and that the reporting represents “nothing but gutter journalism at its worst.” He demands an apology from the Star, and as the show outros to commercial, Rob mutters, “They’re never going to apologize.”

1:39: Doug continues to set the record straight. He says that Provincial Conservative house leader Jim Wilson has met him, although Wilson said that wasn’t the case last week, in an apparent attempt to distance the party from the increasingly toxic Ford family. Doug adds that he’s always maintained that if there’s not a provincial election soon, he might not be able to run, which is something that he has never said publicly before.

1:40: Doug, self-hating politician: “I’ll tell you right now, I don’t like politicians. They’re self serving.” Yes, like when they cause a crisis of confidence in the institution they’re meant to uphold, but won’t step aside because they’re too stubborn to recognize they aren’t bigger than the discourse they’re supposed to lead. Like that.

1:41: Doug calls Rob, who will not attend Pride Week, a social Dipper.

1:42: Now we’re talking about subways. Rob says if Metrolinx passed all their proposed taxes, he would have to take his children out of activities like soccer and dancing. All these social elites, hating on soccer and dance classes.

1:48: Rob says he’s saved the city $1 billion as mayor. Except, as Matt Elliott writes in Metro, that’s false. Sigh.

2:00: Rob is going to announce his favourite media person! Will it be me? Oh gosh, Raccoon Nation. This is exciting. Darn, it’s Talk 640′s John Oakley. So close. It’s okay Rob, call me if that doesn’t work out.

2:07: Rob goes through his talking points, saying how he plans to reduce the City’s debt over 10 years. Sure, this relies on the assumption that there will either be more funding from other orders of government or some kind of massive sale of the City’s capital assets, but whatever.

2:09: Doug is now trying to justify the $1 billion falsehood that he and Rob talk about so frequently. He points to eliminating the vehicle registration tax as an example of a savings, which is like talking about saving on credit card expenses by using debit.

2:12: Doug says Rob is the only mayor to achieve four years of labour peace, which must be news to the library workers.

2:12: “I promised to bring accountability to city hall, and that’s exactly what I’ve done,” says the mayor who refuses to answer direct questions about whether he has smoked crack while in office.

2:26: Apparently a calypso singer wrote a song for Rob Ford called “Toronto is Strong.”

2:35: The Fords say they’ll grant interviews to any media members who are willing to get in an inner tube at their cottage. I was planning to cover Pride Week, but challenge accepted.

2:42: Rob says he can’t wait for an election, that he’s a caged animal. This makes it sound a lot like he’s a wrestler itching for a match, which is fitting, considering the fact that he was mentioned on Monday Night RAW in Calgary last week. World class city!

2:43: Alan on line two is really upset about a traffic light in his ward. Rather than installing the light, he suggests hiring police officers to camp out there and issue tickets for jaywalking, which would generate revenue for the city. Alan is kind of crazy.

2:45: Rob says again that he wants an election, and Doug suggests that the City have an election early, at the same time as the provincial one. Rob likes this idea. He seems almost gleeful, like a kid who just hit all the buttons on the elevator. Doug refers to the people as the only ammunition he and Rob have, which is true: when, as mayor, you don’t have a vision to share, Torontonians become collateral damage in your political games.

2:48: Kate on line four wants a telephone referendum on the casino issue, which recently lost at council 40-4. If Newstalk 1010 ran the casino referendum, it would probably pass.

2:49: Another caller is angry that the media only goes after Rob, when someone like councillor Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Paul’s) was charged with impaired driving in 2006. Fair is fair. Neither DUIs (with which Rob has also been charged) nor any kind of crack use are cool. Fair and balanced.

2:51: Rob characterizes the Star and Globe as the “two NDP newspapers,” and Doug promotes the Sun and Post as the papers worth reading. Really? The Globe as an NDP paper? The one whose lead columnists include Margaret Wente and Jeffrey Simpson? The one that called household chores the final frontier of feminism in its Saturday edition? Okay then.

2:52: Caller Clare isn’t from Toronto, but follows what’s going on. She thinks Rob and Doug are wonderful “teddy bears” and that Kathleen Wynne should mind her own business.

3:00: Doug signs off, and blesses Ford Nation with a wave of his infallible hand, or whatever the radio equivalent is.

This was a pretty good show, folks. There were sports, and digs at the provincial Liberals, and attacks on wasteful spending that’s actually kind of reasonable, and an election idea that’s pretty crazy. Also, Rob and Doug demanded that the Toronto Star apologize, but also offered its reporters rides in an inner tube. The Fords contain multitudes! Four out of five inner tubes.