With a title like “Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem,” you wouldn’t expect a Netflix documentary about late Toronto mayor Rob Ford to be complimentary — the unflattering cover photo that shows a ruddy-faced, open-mouthed Ford surrounded by microphones sets the tone.
That being said, this 49-minute film, part of a series of “Trainwreck” docs by the British company Raw TV that rehash disasters and scandals around the world, isn’t a hatchet job.
Yes, it opens with a reference to the crack cocaine scandal of 2013 — how could it not? — but it also makes note of Ford’s legendary devotion to his constituents and features interviews with friends and supporters.
Etobicoke-born Rob Ford, the brother of Premier Doug Ford, was a Toronto city councillor from 2000 until 2010, when he was elected mayor, serving in the top job until 2014. He registered to run for a second term but withdrew from the race when he was diagnosed with cancer, running for, and winning back his councillor’s seat in Etobicoke’s Ward 2 instead. He died in March 2016 at the age of 46.
“Trainwreck” documents, in a rudimentary way, Rob’s successful campaign to win the top job, claiming that a 2009 garbage strike had damaged then-mayor David Miller’s standing, leaving the race to succeed him “wide open for anyone to jump in,” in the words of reporter Katie Simpson.
Tom Beyer, Ford’s former special assistant, notes his boss’s reputation as a man of the people — “he considered himself a public servant” — while Mark Towhey, his former chief of staff, posits that Ford’s foray into politics was about trying to please his father, former MPP Doug Ford Sr.
Whatever you might have thought of him, there’s no denying Rob’s popularity. As the doc shows, media revelations during the mayoral campaign of charges of drunk driving and marijuana possession against him did nothing to deter his supporters — although Beyer says that, when driving Ford’s campaign bus around the city, he was as likely to be greeted with middle fingers as waves.
Other controversies are covered in the film — Ford’s 2012 conflict of interest trial that almost cost him his job; his apparently drunken appearance at a 2013 military ball; a video of him speaking in Jamaican patois; his comments about oral sex at a city hall scrum — but the story that puts the “wreck” in “Trainwreck” involves the crack cocaine scandal.
I won’t belabour it here. Essentially, a video was shown to two Toronto Star reporters in May 2013 that appeared to show Ford smoking from a crack pipe. After the story was published, Ford denied smoking crack and said he couldn’t comment on a video “that I have never seen or does not exist.” He didn’t backtrack until November after then-police chief Bill Blair confirmed there really was a video of Ford appearing to smoke crack.
But Ford couldn’t be forced from office, so his council colleagues removed his powers instead.
What comes to mind after watching this rehashing of the events of more than a decade ago is: why tell the story now?
Director Shianne Brown told the Star’s Ilyas Hussein that she was aware of the scandal when it broke, remembered the media frenzy that erupted at the time and wanted to look beyond the headlines at Ford, which doesn’t really answer my question.
Torontonians who lived through this reign of error might sigh or shake their heads or roll their eyes, and then get on with their days. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of Ford’s, but I have no desire to dance on his grave either.
One thing I did find interesting was the story’s faint echoes of Trumpism, mainly in the tendency of hardcore Ford fans to support their man no matter what, media reports be damned.
As Toronto Star reporter David Rider says in the doc: “Rob Ford demonizing the media years before Donald Trump did the same thing was extremely effective.”
“I just really did not understand how much people mistrust media,” added former Star reporter Robyn Doolittle, noting that a poll that came out around the time of the crack video story found that around 50 per cent of respondents believed the Star made it up.
To me, the Rob Ford portrayed in “Trainwreck” is neither sinner nor saint, just a fallible human being.
What seem most interesting are the what ifs. What if Rob hadn’t gotten sick and died? Would Torontonians have given him a second term as mayor?
It’s not that far-fetched, not when someone accused of inciting insurrection at the seat of government in the United States of America can be handed a second term as president.
“Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem” debuts on Netflix Tuesday.
