{"id":18786,"date":"2011-03-28T10:46:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=18786"},"modified":"2011-03-28T10:48:11","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:48:11","slug":"lorinc-rob-fords-house-of-glass-and-gravy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/03\/28\/lorinc-rob-fords-house-of-glass-and-gravy\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Rob Ford’s house of glass and gravy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Anyone who\u2019s followed Rob Ford\u2019s political career know he\u2019s got a quick trigger finger when it comes to hurling allegations of corruption at his council colleagues, the civil service and anyone else who fails to live up to his rhetoric of fiscal probity. But when accusations flow in the other direction, he has a history of responding with denials, prevarication or, in his current role, silence.<\/p>\n

The politics of self-righteousness is always risky: as the old saying goes, those in live in glass houses shouldn\u2019t throw stones, or footballs, as the case may be.<\/p>\n

Case in point: over the past week, both the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail published details about the relationship between Ford and the family business, Deco Labels and Tags. Drawn from various official documents, the revelations show:<\/p>\n

\u2022 that the City and the TTC have done a moderate amount of business with Deco for several years;
\n\u2022 that the mayor has continued to spend time on Deco matters since assuming office;
\n\u2022 and that his election campaign\u00a0 spent $150,000 to purchase materials from Deco<\/a> for his mayoral run, which cost $1.7 million according to filings submitted this week.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s focus on what\u2019s behind door number three, because those campaign expenses raise genuinely intriguing issues.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Almost 12% of the campaign\u2019s total spending (i.e. the amount subject to the $1.3 million cap) found its way into Deco\u2019s coffers, the firm founded by the late Doug Ford Sr. and which is said to have revenues of about $25 million.<\/p>\n

The main question I have is whether the brothers Ford, who are among the company\u2019s principal shareholders, pocketed the profits associated with those campaign purchases. The point seems germane because so many ordinary voters donated cash to a candidate focused obsessively on transparency and accountability.<\/p>\n

The campaign funds spent on the Deco materials are anything but.<\/p>\n

Did the candidate disclose to supporters that his family business would benefit financially from the campaign\u2019s fundraising activities? And did the Fords, as Deco shareholders, benefit financially from an indirect subsidy because political contributions are eligible for a tax credit, with donors receiving a 75% refund.<\/p>\n

The answers hinge on the terms of trade between Deco and the campaign. How did the two parties settle on a price for those goods? Needless to say, the Fords found themselves on both sides of the deal, raising issues of conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

According to the city\u2019s “campaign-expenses” election rules for calculating expenses<\/a>, \u201cIn valuing campaign materials, the candidate should use the current market value.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current market value, of course, includes the profit margin, which flows back to the shareholders in the form of dividends. If the campaign followed the rules, those outlays could have yielded thousands of dollars in net earnings for Deco.<\/p>\n

If, on the other hand, Deco offered Ford\u2019s team the materials at cost, then the Respect for Taxpayer juggernaut may have violated City of Toronto election rules.<\/p>\n

Either way, the mayor\u2019s got some uncomfortable questions to address.<\/p>\n

The list of unanswered Deco-related queries, incidentally, doesn\u2019t end there. Important questions persist about the Bermuda triangle that has long existed between Ford\u2019s political career, the family company and his office budget.<\/p>\n

Ford always made a very public point of spending none of his office expense allocation. Yet city sources tell me that when Ford was a councillor, they were aware of the fact that Deco supplied goods for his office, but couldn\u2019t resolve the issue of how these corporate contributions should be treated. He has always claimed he paid for those expenses from his own pocket.<\/p>\n

But did he buy Deco-produced materials \u2014 e.g., business cards \u2014 at market value, or at a discount? If the customer is also the supplier, how did Ford decide on the price? And from Deco\u2019s perspective, should discounted transactions be treated as in-kind political contributions and therefore subject to a tax break?<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know the answers.<\/p>\n

Lastly, when Ford was a councillor with little to do but trawl around other councillors\u2019 wards in search of disgruntled residents, a City Hall source says he would often badger municipals officials to come directly to the homes of the people who phoned him so they could address those constituents\u2019 problems in person.<\/p>\n

Is this the most cost-efficient way for public servants to spend their time in a city with 2.5 million residents? Hardly, especially after the city invested millions on 311 \u2014 which, for reasons that look increasingly self-interested, he opposed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the marginal cost of those bureaucrats\u2019 house calls never showed up on Ford\u2019s office budget, although they certainly represented a draw on city resources.<\/p>\n

In his\u00a0 Saturday column<\/a>, The Globe\u2019s Marcus Gee called on Ford to follow the lead of other political leaders and put his share of the company assets into a blind trust so Deco\u2019s activities don\u2019t continue to muddy the mayoral waters.<\/p>\n

Certainly sound advice, but perhaps first the mayor of Toronto should consider refunding any profits he may have derived from the $150,000 in Deco-related campaign purchases. It may not be a huge sum, but that\u2019s hardly the point.<\/p>\n

Rob Ford has always harangued Torontonians about the principle that public and political expenditures, no matter how small, should be free from, well, gravy.<\/p>\n

Well, from where I sit, I see gravy, and I think I know who the chef is.<\/p>\n

photo by Jose Ongpin<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who\u2019s followed Rob Ford\u2019s political career know he\u2019s got a quick trigger finger when it comes to hurling allegations of corruption at his council colleagues, the civil service and anyone else who fails to live up to his rhetoric of fiscal probity. But when accusations flow in the other direction, he has a historyContinue reading “LORINC: Rob Ford’s house of glass and gravy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17311,17310,13842,408,12709,17309,13818,12451,426,227,314,339,19,341,391],"class_list":["post-18786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bermuda","tag-bermuda-triangle","tag-chef","tag-councillor","tag-deco","tag-doug-ford-sr","tag-jose-ongpin","tag-marcus-gee","tag-mayor","tag-rob-ford","tag-the-globe-and-mail","tag-the-toronto-star","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-star","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Rob Ford's house of glass and gravy - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/03\/28\/lorinc-rob-fords-house-of-glass-and-gravy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Rob Ford's house of glass and gravy - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anyone who\u2019s followed Rob Ford\u2019s political career know he\u2019s got a quick trigger finger when it comes to hurling allegations of corruption at his council colleagues, the civil service and anyone else who fails to live up to his rhetoric of fiscal probity. 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