Rob Ford to return to Toronto in time for Canada Day, but not World Pride

Rob Ford's declared Canada Day return to Toronto after weeks of treatment at a lakeside rehabilitation facility has plenty of upside as he re-enters the Toronto mayoral election campaign.

For one, he'll be back in Toronto just in time to be seen shaking hands and waving at city events marking the patriotic holiday. For another, it leaves him with almost exactly four months to shore up his support base before the Oct. 27 election.

A third, and surely coincidental, benefit to his June 30 return to Toronto is that Rob Ford will miss the city's World Pride Festival by a matter of hours.

Toronto is set to become the first North American city to host the international event when the festivities begin on June 20.

The nine-day event will culminate with a Pride parade down Yonge Street on June 29. Organizers say it will be the largest Pride Parade Canada has ever seen. In the words of Maxwell Smart, missed it by that much.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun, Ford said he was aiming to return to Toronto on the afternoon of June 30.

“I will be leaving here at noon or so June 30 and be back for events July 1,” he told the Sun's Joe Warmington. “I want to have time for a workout first and say goodbye to some people here. When you spend this kind of time with people you develop some friendships. They have been very good to me. But I should be home for 4 or 5 p.m.”

Oddly, Ford texted Warmington a photo of himself in the pool, which the Sun gratefully blew up and ran on their front page on Monday.

Since becoming mayor in 2010, Ford has made annual headlines by skipping the Pride parade. In the past, Ford has said he can't attend the parade because it conflicts with his family tradition of going to the cottage for Canada Day.

Earlier this year, however, Ford proactively announced he would skip the event because of his personal bias.

"I’ve never gone to a Pride parade. So I’m not going to change the way I am," he said during a campaign forum in February.

World Pride organizers responded by saying they had concerns about comments Ford had made in the past - specifically homophobic remarks he reportedly made on the original crack cocaine video, and another video in which he called the chief of police a homophobic slur.

Since then, Ford hasn't done much to curry favour with Toronto's LGBTQ community. He launching a bizarre battle over a gay-rights flag hung during the Olympics, which some pundits suggested was part of a bid to appeal to his socially conservative voter base.

There was also racist, sexist and misogynistic comments made in the video and audio recordings that pushed him to rehab in the first place.

Of course, being in rehab for the Canada Day weekend means Ford would miss the family cottage as well. But for the sake of Ford's health, those are concessions he'll surely make happily.