{"id":46342,"date":"2013-11-06T08:30:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T13:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=46342"},"modified":"2013-11-05T23:14:06","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T04:14:06","slug":"lorinc-ford-family-dynamics-heart-fiasco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2013\/11\/06\/lorinc-ford-family-dynamics-heart-fiasco\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Ford family dynamics at heart of fiasco"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"feature-lorinc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1991, the American author Jane Smiley published \u201cA Thousand Acres,\u201d<\/a> a devastating novel about a mid-western farm family \u2013 an aging pater familias<\/em>, and his three adult daughters \u2014 and the struggle to deal with their land. Smiley\u2019s book is a contemporary revision of \u201cKing Lear\u201d that posed a deeply provocative question that Shakespeare didn\u2019t tackle: Why were Lear\u2019s daughters so angry at their father?<\/p>\n

Without giving anything away, I\u2019ll just say that Smiley offered a compelling explanation about the causes behind a dysfunctional family relationship.<\/p>\n

I found myself thinking of this story last night after Mayor Rob Ford\u2019s astonishing and sloppy two-act display of public contrition.<\/p>\n

The obvious question that\u2019s run through this six-month saga is, how can a public figure be so oblivious to, or cavalier about, the consequences of their actions?<\/p>\n

But perhaps the question we should be asking \u2014 post-confession \u2014 is this: why does a man with so many privileges and such material wealth feel a compulsion to self-medicate to the point of addiction?<\/p>\n

What, or whom, is he running from? What is the source of his pain?<\/p>\n

These questions are not the stuff of political journalism, except that this mayor\u2019s story from the start has been a family story, and, in another way, a story about a most peculiar family. At some level, it is also a tale about one child\u2019s place in a clan with dynastic aspirations and more than its fair share of familial scandal.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the subject of Doug.<\/p>\n

Doug, who, as of yesterday morning, decided to mount what is now a very characteristic counter-attack which, typically, involves the hurling of fictitious allegations in the direction of a perceived antagonist \u2014 in this case, Chief Bill Blair.<\/p>\n

The mayor, as we all now know, headed off on a very different tangent, with an apparently spontaneous two-step confession and apology, and the rather remarkable statement that he felt \u201ca thousand pounds lighter\u201d for having made it.<\/p>\n

During the surreal afternoon press conference, Doug stood stony-faced, slightly to the right of his brother and a step behind. I always feel it\u2019s important to take note of body language, and Doug\u2019s sentry-like stance in such situations often makes me think that he isn\u2019t standing symbolically with his brother so much as he is watching over Rob, perhaps to make sure he doesn\u2019t screw up. That\u2019s why he\u2019s on council. So there is judgment in both his current job and his body language, and, I suspect, a subtle undertow of brotherly disapproval that\u2019s probably been present in their relationship for a very long time.<\/p>\n

On Sunday\u2019s radio show, Doug was conspicuously subdued during Rob\u2019s first non-specific apology. During the mayor\u2019s more expansive apology yesterday \u2014 to his family, members of council, and Torontonians \u2014 he specifically noted that Doug didn\u2019t know about the crack use. Doug needs, or perhaps demands, special attention. He isn\u2019t merely a member of Rob\u2019s family; he needs a separate category.<\/p>\n

I also found myself wondering whether these two men \u2014 the glowering alpha-male older brother and the doughy younger sibling \u2014 were in agreement about the mayor\u2019s seemingly spontaneous confession.<\/p>\n

Rob, of course, has a long history of lying and denying. Doug, by contrast, lies for overtly political purposes, and it seems to me that Rob\u2019s truth-telling is deeply inconvenient to his brother. Doug has long coveted a spot in Tim Hudak\u2019s caucus, but some reports from Queen\u2019s Park suggest he\u2019s been tainted by Rob\u2019s scandal.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll never know, but one has to wonder what Doug actually thinks about these episodes.<\/p>\n

Does he remind himself that his dim-witted younger brother has always messed up, only this time on an epic scale? Or that the sainted father, Doug Sr., had little patience for his youngest child? Or that it fell naturally to Doug, the business-minded golden boy, to grow the family company, while Rob could be trusted to do little more than spend a few hours a week signing cheques?<\/p>\n

I also ask myself whether Doug \u2013 and their mother, Diane \u2014 still believe that Rob can actually do what\u2019s left of his job, and then lead Ford Nation to another victory. It is inconceivable to me that in the privacy of their Etobicoke redoubt, with the wagons duly circled and the sharpshooters manning the look-outs, that this existential question has not come up in conversation.<\/p>\n

And its obvious corollary: could Doug \u2014 whose shoes (in his view) are not covered in shit \u2014 lead Ford Nation to a second victory, and in the process rescue the family name from disrepute and scandal?<\/p>\n

In the farthest recesses of Doug\u2019s mind, does he want Rob to succeed or fail? And, given that Rob is now so close to abject, total failure, what does Doug do with his own ambition? What has Diane said to Doug? What has she said to Rob? What do Doug and Diane think about Rob\u2019s defiance in the face of global humiliation?<\/p>\n

Long-established and mostly opaque family dynamics are almost certainly affecting this train wreck of a mayoralty, and, by extension, the civic life of a city.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to make a guy want to take a drink.<\/p>\n

original photo by Carlos Osorio<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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