Let’s Not Hate on Ford for the Wrong Reasons

Don’t get us wrong, we dislike Rob Ford as much as the next guy. Maybe more. And we were delighted with Justice Hackland’s decision on Monday ordering the Mayor be removed from office for violating Toronto’s Municipal Conflict of Interest Act.

We’re ecstatic about him being booted, but we’re also disappointed with how people continue to flippantly ridicule the Mayor about his weight. His physical appearance is irrelevant, and the more his weight gets brought into this, the further we get from legitimately critiquing his horrible record as a member of City Council, not to mention the further we get from ridding ourselves of fat phobic attitudes.

So if you’re also happy to see Rob Ford go there’s no need to be ableist or anti-fat about it. There are a number of politically solid reasons to join the “left-wing conspiracy” against Rob Ford. This is a man who has vowed to privatized the city’s community housing corporation, has contracted out city services so he could pay workers lower wages, spent 300k to remove bike lanes claiming that when cyclist get hit by cars it’s their own fault, believes that “oriental people are slowly taking over”, has called for Toronto to be a “refugee free zone”, proposed closing homeless shelters, used city funds in the coaching of his football team, has called for people convicted of crimes to be exiled from Toronto, supported police violence during the G20 meetings, and voted against city funding for community-based HIV prevention programs saying that “If you’re not doing needles and you’re not gay, you won’t get AIDS probably”. Or if you’re still looking for reasons you can simply rely on Justice Hackland’s decision and cite the Mayor’s “stubborn sense of entitlement” or his “dismissive and confrontational attitude”.

With all these reasons to be anti-Ford there is no need for fat phobic insults.