Mayor Rob Ford has admitted to having a “minor setback” on Monday but he insists that it is a “private matter” and that he continues to work to improve his health and well-being.
Ford made the comment to reporters in a hastily called press conference Wednesday evening, more than 24 hours after a video surfaced on YouTube showing him rambling and swearing in Jamaican Patois at a Rexdale restaurant.
“Monday was unfortunate. I had a minor setback. We all experience these difficult bumps in life,” he said. “This is completely a private matter, though. There are some councillors that claim that my personal life is somehow impacting their work. Folks, that is absolute nonsense.”
After the video surfaced on Tuesday. Ford admitted to drinking a “little bit” on Monday night, but he did not apologize for his behaviour, saying that what he does with his personal time is his business.
On Wednesday Ford reiterated those comments.
“My personal life does not interfere with the work that I do day in and day out for the taxpayers of this great city,” he said. “At city hall I am focused on my work and I encourage my councillor colleagues to do the same.”
Ford’s admission that he did drink on Monday came two months after he vowed to never drink again following an admission that he smoked crack cocaine while in a “drunken stupor.”
“He made the guarantee, he made the promise that this wasn’t going to be happening again and it has,”Coun. Gary Crawford told CP24 at city hall Wednesday. “He has a problem, he has an issue, he has an addiction and we are all in many ways enabling this.”
In the video that surfaced on Tuesday afternoon, Ford is heard discussing being followed by police and taking “counter-surveillance” measures.
In a second video that surfaced Tuesday evening Ford is seen seated at the same restaurant with a man believed to be Alexander Lisi. It is not clear when the second video was taken.
Lisi is a friend of the mayor's and is charged with extortion for his alleged efforts to retrieve a video believed to show the mayor smoking crack cocaine.
Ford has not yet responded to the second video, but on Wednesday Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly suggested that it is inappropriate for the mayor to be seen alongside Lisi given what has transpired.
Lisi was the subject of extensive police surveillance over the summer, surveillance that often included the mayor.
“He (Lisi) has problems, legal ones and possibly criminal ones, and in light of all of the revelations of the past few months I would have thought the mayor would have wanted to distance himself from those issues,” Kelly said.
Ford did not speak to reporter as he arrived at city hall on Wednesday morning, but on Tuesday he defended his conduct in the first video, telling reporters that was he does on his own time is his business.
Addressing the latest developments in the Ford scandal at an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Premier Kathleen Wynne admitted that she is concerned that Ford’s foibles are beginning to distract from the business of the city.
“The discussion about one person’s personal issues can detract and distract from the business of growing Toronto,” Wynne said.
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