voxpopulicosmicum
Senior Member
No. Don't you think it was funny?
TBH, I didn't really get it. I was trying to figure out which picture you were referencing, and then there was the explanatory note at the bottom. And the admission that you voted for Ford for a joke. It was all abit difficult to get. But I was tired and by no means should you take that as a slight.
On.the business card issue Ford is caught in a trap of circular criticism. The family business has always existed as a supply depot for him. The business can supply something he needs at wholesale cost so he takes it and concludes that he's saving the taxpayers an expense. Then his opposition says you can't do that, you need to bill at market rate. So an invoice is drawn up to meet those concerns, and when it is the opposition cries look, he's trying to make profits for his business by trading on his position. But if it wasn't for the process requirements he probably never would have billed the city, he would have instead covered costs out of his own pocket.
It's a trivial transaction that doesn't expose the corrupt underbelly of the Ford's, no matter how much people want there to be a gotcha here. What it does expose is how unprofessionaly the Ford's operate. The danger is that they'd operate in the same casual manner on some greater dealing, say in easing land deals down in the Portlands for friends and contributors, and would be unable to comprehend why something that is making money for some private enterprise might in any way be bad for the city, could in any way be wrong.
I agree there's a reasonable chance there's no "there" there, but I don't think there's any dispute that it would be actual corruption if Ford had fraudulently produced fake 3rd party invoices as purported proof of obtaining competitive bids. So what we're left with is a general feeling that Ford probably didn't fraudulently produce fake 3rd party invoices, but he's too stupid not to retain records that prove his innocence. This follows on last week's discussion about the Hume column where the general feeling was that The Star shouldn't behave like a petulant child just because the mayor is a petulant child.
I feel *so* confident that my tax dollars are in good hands.