Toronto Mayor Rob Ford dances his cares away at final council meeting before election

It was the last council session of Rob Ford's first term as mayor and he went out the same way he spent most of the past four years: as a sideshow.

Toronto's troubled and troubling mayor spent a few moments during the last council meeting before the city's municipal election in October by dancing in the aisles, as a singer performed a reggae version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

As the rest of council sat in their chairs and grooved to the music, Ford stood up and swung back and forth, smiling somewhat self-consciously. At one point he sang the chorus into a microphone; at another he left his desk entirely and wiggled around the room.

Ford also admitted to fellow council members that he had embarrassed them and thanked Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly for taking his place when Ford was stripped of his powers and authorities.

Ford has made a habit of dancing in public. And while Ford may not know how to dance, he does know when to dance. He joined council in a full-on dance party during a session in December, shortly after he declared war on council after they stripped of his powers over concerns about his behaviour and inability to act as mayor.

The video was picked up around the world, specifically by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

"What the Hell is going on? Are they all on crack?" Kimmel quipped at the time.

Earlier in the year, Ford appeared at a Toronto church and danced in front of the choir. The bizarre appearance came as Ford was facing serious questions about his drug use. This was before he admitted to using almost every drug imaginable and while he was facing a serious public image crisis.

By coincidence, a report released shortly before Ford's Thursday dance session exposed previously unknown concerns about his time as a volunteer football coach.

According to accounts gleaned from a Catholic school board investigation, launched before the mayor was fired as from his coaching duties last year, Ford once showed up to a practice with Don Bosco Catholic High School students visibly inebriated and, in another incident, forced players to roll around in goose feces because he was upset with them.

At the same time, a new mayoral poll found that Ford now sits in second place in support, behind John Tory but in front of Olivia Chow.

What does that mean? It means this might not be Rob Ford's last dance, after all.

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