All is forgiven for the Ford brothers - at least as far as Toronto Council is concerned.
Council considered two reports from Integrity Commissioner Janet Leiper, concerning issues with Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Etobicoke North Councillor Doug Ford.Doug Ford was in the hot seat over whether he had adequately apologized for making remarks that Leiper said were threatening to activist Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler in council chambers last July.Chaleff-Freudenthaler had filed a compliance audit request on Ford's election expenses. Ford told Chaleff-Freudenthaler he had better have his facts straight and "what goes around comes around."When asked to apologize, Ford provided a handwritten apology that Chaleff-Freudenthaler found to be inadequate, in that it was conditional.At council, Ford relented and offered a more fulsome apology, which council accepted."I will stand up once again for the third time...I apologize if I acted unparliamentary if I offended the complainant," said Ford. "Doug Ford apologizes."His brother Rob Ford's issue was more complex. During the last term of council, Ford - then a councillor - used his letterhead to raise funds for a football charity in his own name. He solicited funds from a variety of sources, including registered lobbyists at the City of Toronto.Then, Leiper found - and council agreed - that Ford needed to reimburse the lobbyists and others for their contributions, because doing so violated the city's lobbying rules. The amount, about $3,500, was to have been returned.However, Ford did not return the money, leading to a situation where, according to Leiper, the lobbyists were prohibited from dealing with the mayor.Under similar circumstances where a member of council is the subject of a decision, that member will declare a conflict of interest and absent him or herself from the debate.Ford stayed on the floor of council and pleaded his case, explaining his foundation has supplied football equipment to high school teams across the city and that young people have benefited from the program."They're getting scholarships, playing professional football now and if it wasn't for this foundation they wouldn't have," he said. "Then to ask me to pay it out of my own pocket personally, there's no sense to this. The money's gone. "Ford pointed out he has since removed the city's logo from his letterhead.He said he has fundraised $100,000 over the last two years.Council wrestled with the issue - sometimes bitterly - but finally decided to rescind the earlier decision supporting the Integrity Commissioner's recommendations and findings.The decision likely means lobbyists who donated to Ford's charity will now be able to lobby him.Some councillors pointed out the decision would open the city up to the kind of corruption that led to the city's MFP computer leasing scandal in the late 1990s."This is not about football, but it most assuredly is about the mayor and that's unfortunate," said downtown councillor Adam Vaughan. "I don't think in his heart he set out to break rules or confuse what is a very important distinction between those who do business at the city and those who make decisions at the city and those who solicit funds. Those distinctions flow straight from the MFP inquiry, and when people say there's no relationship between charity and influence, they need to read the MFP report. They are extraordinarily important."In the MFP computer leasing scandal, Toronto Council signed with a plan to lease desktop computers that cost the city tens of millions more than expected, after MFP sales people developed inappropriately close relationships with senior city staff and politicians.Following an inquiry into the scandal, the city adopted numerous rules and procedures to prevent similar scandals from occurring again.