Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford dies after fighting cance

Rob Gillies The Associated press

TORONTO — Rob Ford, the pugnacious, populist former mayor of Toronto whose career crashed in a drug-driven, obscenity-laced debacle, died Tuesday after fighting cancer, his family said. He was 46.

Ford rode into office on a backlash against urban elites. He cast an image sharply at odds with Canada’s reputation for sedate, unpretentious politics. His tenure as mayor of the country’s largest city was marred by revelations about his drinking problems and illegal drug use. He was repeatedly videotaped and photographed while intoxicated in public.

Nevertheless, after losing that office he was later elected by a landslide to a City Council seat, a job he held until his death.

One after another, his statements and actions became nightly fodder for TV comedians and an embarrassment to many of the suburbanites he championed. 

Although his cancer ultimately forced him to drop his re-election bid, Ford opted to seek his old City Council seat. It was in the same suburban district where he launched his political career and where his everyman style and conservative fiscal policies first gained a faithful following that became known as Ford Nation. He won his old seat in a landslide. His brother Doug replaced him on the ballot for mayor but lost.

The youngest of four children, Rob Ford grew up in a palatial home in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. He dropped out of university after a year and worked at the family business. 

Ford mayor met his wife, Renata, in high school, and they were married in 2000. One of Renata Ford’s few forays into the media spotlight came in 2008 after a widely reported domestic dispute with her husband. Rob Ford was charged with assault and threatening death, but prosecutors withdrew the charges, citing inconsistencies in Renata Ford’s statements.

Ford is survived by his wife and two children, Stephanie and Doug.