Wednesday, June 29, 2011

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alt-weekly, recently lampooned the mayor with a Photoshopped near-naked cover that resulted in an order (later rescinded) to remove NOW from racks in all city-owned buildings (to be fair, Ford's office denied they had given such an order and the integrity commissioner threw out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

5 Comments:

Blogger gallow said...

So as a city we can't understand that the Mayor wants to spend time with his family... come on people. Its Canada Day weekend, not just some random short week. Besides arent we all sick and tired of the city wasting money, so why even think about flying him in at the cost of 8k which would at lest double with all the logistical parts. Big waste of time and tax payers money!!!

12:35 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He's the mayor of Toronto. With that comes responsibilities, one of which, arguably, is to attend the Gay Pride Parade. You can debate whether or not that is, in fact, an event he should or should not attend, but to excuse him because "he wants to spend time with his family" is bunk. He got himself into this. Step up to the pate.

12:11 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Please, this obviously wasn't about "time with the family." There were a number of Pride events he could have attended (including the flag-raising at City Hall). His refusal to make a single token gesture towards queer community was 100% deliberate.

12:55 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not sure Rob Ford really needs to step up to the pâté...

1:22 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He would if it were battered and deep fried. (I was responsible for the typo.)

5:13 pm  

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