A staunch Rob Ford ally on his relationship with the late ex-mayor
Few city councillors supported Rob Ford in his darkest moments at city hall. Giorgio Mammoliti was one of them.
Former Toronto Mayor and current city Councillor Rob Ford arrives to show support for Canada’s Prime Minister and Conservative leader Stephen Harper at a campaign rally at William F. White International Inc, a stage lighting equipment supplier in Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto, October 13, 2015. Ford, was a larger-than-life figure who made international headlines with his admission that he smoked crack cocaine while he was Toronto Mayor, arrived wearing a sweatsuit to remain comfortable while he recovers from surgery to remove a cancerous tumour in his abdomen earlier this year. Canadians will go to the polls for a federal election on October 19. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)
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When Toronto’s city council confronted Rob Ford’s public struggle with addiction in 2013, the late former mayor counted very few friends among his colleagues in the chamber. Coun. Giorgio Mammoliti sat right beside Ford as council dismantled the then-mayor’s hold on power in a series of votes that transferred authority to deputy mayor Norm Kelly’s office. Always outspoken, Mammoliti joined Doug Ford, Rob’s brother and a city councillor at the time, in expressing personal support for the mayor. No matter the unflattering international headline related to Ford’s inappropriate public comments, videos of Ford inebriated around the city, and that infamous tape that captured him smoking crack, Mammoliti maintained what he called a “special relationship” with Ford.
Cormac Mac Sweeney, Parliament Hill Reporter for City & 680NEWS, spoke to Mammoliti about his recollection of those years at city hall.
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