We'll pay to fly you to the Pride parade, Mr. Mayor, says NOW magazine

In the annals of cheeky gestures, this is a pip. NOW magazine of Toronto has offered in a press release to fly Rob Ford from his family cottage in Huntsville to Toronto so that he would be able to march in, or at least appear at, the Gay Pride Parade. Ford has begged off (unlike several of his predecessors) and said it was because of a tradition of spending the long weekend at the cottage. 

You'll recall that NOW, Toronto's most-established alt-weekly, recently lampooned the mayor with a Photoshopped near-naked cover that resulted in an order (later rescinded) to remove NOW from racks in all city-owned buildings (to be fair, Ford's office denied they had given such an order and the integrity commissioner threw out a complaint from the magazine.)

The release from NOW says:

An estimated 1.2 million people attend Pride. More than one quarter of those attending come from outside of the GTA. If they can make it to Toronto, why can't our own Mayor? NOW Magazine is not alone in thinking what a crock – and what a shame that is. So, we're offering to pay for his flight from Huntsville to Toronto to attend this year's PRIDE festivities.

 The magazine says it estimated the flight by chartered float plane would cost it $2,000 to $4,000. Adding to the cheekiness, it said

"He can pile into the float plane in his swim trunks. Half the people at Pride are wearing Speedos or less, anyway. There's even water fights."