Rob Ford’s friend and staffer made anonymous calls to mayor’s radio show

Well, it's not as if "transparency" is among his key tenets as mayor. And certainly not as a talk radio host. Because it appears frequent caller "Dave from Scarborough" is actually "David from the Mayor's Office."

Ford, who hosts a weekly radio program with his brother, Coun. Doug Ford, often makes headlines for things he says and does during his time behind the talk-radio microphone. He frequently uses the show to launch partisan attacks against Queen's Park, councillors and city staff members.

And on some occasions, it has been suggested that even listeners who call into the show are part of the agenda. Callers are near-unanimously Ford supporters, and the rare times someone critical slips onto the show, conversations tend to end quickly.

Like when Chris Logan managed to get on the show by pretending she was a suburban supporter, and then asked the mayor address the alleged existence of a video of him smoking from a crack pipe.

The call ended quickly and she was vilified as a "racist."

Now, someone in the Mayor's Office is making headlines for his own appearances on the program.

[ Related: Ford friend 'Dave' made calls to mayor's radio show ]

CBC News has learned former frequent caller "Dave" is actually David Price, the mayor's longtime friend and current director of operations and logistics.

As an anonymous caller, Dave (who has given a variety of call locations over the years) has been on the air six times, echoing the Ford agenda nearly verbatim.

In March, "Dave from Scarborough" dismissed LRTs as "left-wing redundant transit." The following month he attacked the city's medical officer of health's recommendation to reduce speed limits.

That was a rather contentious topic on the Ford radio program.

Mayor Ford called David McKeown's salary and embarrassment and Doug Ford suggested he shouldn't have a job at all. The mayor later apologized after Toronto's integrity commissioner found his comments to have breached the code of conduct.

But "Dave" wasn't done. He later called, this time “from Etobicoke” and declared Toronto's five-cent charge for plastic bags "fascism."

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The CBC News report says the calls ended a month before Price joined the mayor's staff. Apparently, someone in the Mayor's Office made him stop calling.

Price is known as Ford's former football coach, and was recently linked to a couple of sour reports about the Ford brothers, one involving a hashish operation allegedly operated by Doug Ford in the 1980s.

Price was interviewed by police last month after reportedly telling former chief of staff Mark Towhey that he "hypothetically" knew where a recording of Rob Ford allegedly smoking from a crack pipe was being held.

The apartment at that address has been at the centre of the ongoing crack video scandal, and was raided as part of a massive police investigation earlier this month.

It comes as no surprise that a talk radio call might be staged. Or that, sadly, someone in the political sphere might anonymously place such a call (See: Bussin, Sandra). What is a surprise is that Rob and Doug wouldn’t recognize their buddy Dave’s voice.

Thankfully, someone who works in the Mayor’s Office had the smarts to shut down the practice before Price joined the staff. That would have been embarrassing.