Rob Ford’s latest confrontation cements Toronto mayor’s gaffe-prone reputation

A confrontation between Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and a Toronto Star reporter outside the mayor's suburban home Wednesday evening is another one of those head-shakers that's characterized his 18 months in office.

Depending on who you believe, Ford chased down Star urban affairs reporter Daniel Dale on a piece of public parkland adjacent to his home in Etobicoke, land which the mayor reportedly wants to buy.

Ford contends Dale was standing on cinder blocks, taking photos of his house while over the fence, essentially trespassing.

But Dale and the Star say the award-winning journalist was on public land, investigating the site that Ford wants to buy in order to erect a better fence aimed at protecting his family from trespassers.

"Daniel Dale was on public property; he was never on Ford's property," Toronto Star spokesman Bob Hepburn said in a Star story.

"He was following up on a story when Ford came out of his house, off his property, and cornered Daniel, yelling at him. The mayor had his fist cocked, yelling at him to drop his cellphone and tape recorder, which Daniel did."

Dale contended he was taking photos of the fence and trees with his mobile phone when Ford came out and challenged him.

"Are you spying on me?" Dale, who was alone, recalled Ford yelling.

At one point, said Dale, the burly mayor ran at him with his fist raised.

"Every time I tried to sidestep him to escape, he moved with me and yelled at me again to drop my phone," Dale said.

"I became more frightened than I can remember; after two or three attempts to dart away, I threw my phone and my recorder down on the grass, yelled that he could take them, and ran."

Ford told CP24 News he was helping his daughter with her homework when a neighbour came and alerted him to someone standing on cinder blocks near his backyard.

"I was controlling myself," Ford said. "My 75-year-old neighbour said he would have grabbed a stick and hit him in his head or something. Anybody would."

CP24 News noted Ford has been at odds with the Star since his 2010 election campaign over a story concerning a 2001 altercation he had with a high school football player while he was coaching, which Ford tried to sue over.

Police are investigating the incident.

Ford is especially protective of his family and home ground. Last year the mayor called police after Mary Walsh, star of CBC's satirical This Hour Has 22 Minutes, showed up at his home playing her well-known character, journalist Marg Delahunty.

"I came out of my house and I was ambushed," Ford said afterward, according to CBC News. "I didn't know who they were and obviously I've had death threats and there was a camera and a mic."

Ford, a veteran city councillor, was elected mayor with a solid majority after campaigning to "Stop the Gravy Train," and cut wasteful spending.

It's not as if voters didn't know what they were getting. Ford's confrontational style and regular gaffes were documented by the National Post during the campaign. They included calling fellow city councillor Giorgio Mannoliti a "Gino boy," and another female councillor "a waste of skin."

During a debate on health grants Ford ventured that ""If you are not doing needles and you're not gay, you wouldn't get AIDS probably."

Ford has been a gaffe machine, judging from a chronology by Canada.com.

After the confrontation with Walsh, there was a subsequent flap over his alleged use of foul language during his 911 call summoning police.

At his inauguration as mayor, Ford invited Don Cherry to say a few words and the famed hockey commentator obliged by saying he wore a pink jacket to the event "for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything."

Speaking of bikes, Ford commented that bicycles and cars don't mix: "Roads are built for buses, cars and trucks. Not for people on bikes. And my heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."

In a pre-election post on blogTO, Tomasz Bugajski wondered if Ford as mayor would be another Mel Lastman, best known to Canadians for asking the army to rescue Toronto from the effects of a heavy snowstorm.

Lastman was also gaffe-prone, Bugajski observed. On a trip to Kenya he joked that he would wind up in a pot of boiling water with natives dancing around it. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, Lastman told CNN he'd never heard of the World Health Organization.

When the mayor's wife was caught shoplifting, Lastman threatened a reporter with murder for writing about it.

But gaffes aside, Lastman left a positive legacy, presiding over Toronto's massive amalgamation, securing funding to redevelop the waterfront and leading efforts to make city restaurants smoke-free, Bugajski argued.

"I occasionally hear people say: 'Lastman didn't turn out so bad, maybe it'll be the same with Ford.' " Bugajski wrote in the summer of 2010. "But I doubt it, Ford would likely be much worse."