Mayor Rob Ford ( enough american politics )

[MigL]

What are your thoughts on Mayor Rob Ford's crack cocaine scandal in Toronto Canada ?

He has admitted smoking crack but hasn't been charged for any crime. City council has stripped him of his mayoral powers and appointed an unelected mayor. Has democracy and the will of the people been usurped ?

Should a new election have been called instead ? With a high probability of Ford being re-elected due to his popular policies.

[iNow]

I'm unsure of how the populace in Canada feels about all of this or how they react to such stories, but I do think the election of Rob Porter was done with the implicit assumption that he would follow the laws, not open himself to extortion, or engage in behaviors that cause him to lose credibility and mayoral power.

 

The question about democracy being usurped is an interesting one, but if your elected mayor breaks the laws he swore to enforce would you not have to replace him with an alternative? The only open question is if this appointed person has the authority to take control, and whether or not a recall/alternate election will be allowed.

 

I think it should be. Run an election. If he loses, the circus is over. If he wins, the circus is over. No matter what, if you hold a runoff election you can get back to the work Toronto needs done and stop chasing the melodramatic distraction and side show.

However, if you're choosing NOT to hold a runoff/alternative election because you fear he might actually win, then THAT in my opinion VERY MUCH is the usurpation of democracy.

[imatfaal]

I think you very much have to follow the protocol and law set down in advance. If you have a written constitution, entrenched law, which has no method for removal of a powerful elected official then you have a problem; the arbitrary removal of an elected official outside a preordained legal route is very dangerous. Rob Ford is a poster-child for the legislature acting extra-legally but in my opinion they should still not do so - and as far as I can tell they have not done so; they had a pre-existing right to vary his/his deputy's powers and they have done this to the limit of their ability. I would be very surprised if a method does not exist either to remove him - or for the other holders of power (the electorate, the legislature, the judiciary, and other members of the executive) to vary the constitution without his consent/agreement to subsequently allow for his removal.

 

The rule of law stands on the avoidance of arbitrary decision - powers are defined in advance and not by those who wield them save those of the sovereign power. I am not sure what or who stands sovereign in Canada - the Queen in Parliament perhaps; or possibly Toronto is separated to an extent as a single federal jurisdiction that in these matters it recognizes no higher governance. But regardless of those points - it is important to firstly; have a system in which the elected members of a parliament can effectively remove a member of the executive in extreme and limited circumstance, and secondly; abide by the letter and spirit of entrenched legislation and constitutions whether held in statute or embedded in constitutional conventions and traditions.