Assgrabgate: Battle of the asses but is Rob Ford playing with a full deck?
Mayor says accuser "not playing with full deck;" she suggests he has a history of lying
By Madhavi Acharya-Tom Yew
Personal Finance Writer
Sunday, March 10, 2013
The war of words between Mayor Rob Ford and the former mayoral candidate who accused him of groping her escalated on Sunday.
Ford said on his Sunday afternoon radio show that he questions whether Sarah Thomson is “playing with a full deck.” Thomson fired back later in the day with a statement that she wouldn’t be silenced.
“Decades ago powerful men who sexually assaulted women would call them ‘hysterical,’ or ‘crazy’ to debase their credibility,” the statement read in part. “It pushed many assaulted women into silence . . . He will not push me into silence and I hope his accusations do not reignite the old fears that once silenced women.”
While Thomson has not yet gone to the police, she told the Star she would “wait and see” before making that decision.
Thomson, transit advocate and publisher of the Women’s Post, first posted on Facebook in the early hours of Friday morning that Ford “grabbed my ass” as they posed for a picture at a party held by a Jewish political group just hours before.
Thomson also said that Ford made a suggestive comment that she should have joined him on a recent trip to Florida because his wife was not there.
The post and accompanying picture, Ford with his eyes closed and a grin on Thomson’s face, ignited a firestorm of controversy. Ford immediately called the groping allegations “absolutely, completely false.”
City Councillor Doug Ford — also the mayor’s brother and radio show co-host — brought up the incident during the two-hour show, which paid tribute to International Women’s Day. Doug called the allegations “disgusting” and then urged his brother to “cut to the chase” and make a comment.
“I don’t even want to waste my time anymore on this. This is not true,” the mayor responded. “I must have taken 500 pictures and it was never an issue with anyone else except for this lady that in my opinion, I’ve always said, I don’t know if she’s playing with a full deck from the first time I met her, and I told her that that night.”
Ford said that Thomson wanted his support for the Toronto Transit Alliance’s campaign to create dedicated transit funding through a 1 per cent increase in sales tax.
“I said, ‘No you’re crazy. Get out of here.’ And that’s pretty well how it went,” Ford said, adding, “When people want to make up their own stories that’s their prerogative. Let’s leave it at that.”
Councillor Frances Nunziata chimed in, “At every party, there’s always a party crasher.” Ford also offered thanks to Richmond Hill councillors who “said it was a setup.”
Ford Chief of Staff Mark Towhey suggested early Friday that the mayor was considering legal action, but Ford made no mention of that during the show.
Thomson, who ran for mayor against Ford in 2010 before dropping out a month before the election to endorse George Smitherman, shows no signs of backing down. “Unlike the Mayor, I do not have a history of lying about my behaviour. Mayor Ford has lied publicly numerous times,” she wrote in her statement.
“The Mayor has a history of denial but usually owns up to his mistakes once the facts become overwhelming and I expect that he will eventually own up to this one.”
The Fords did not open the phone lines to callers. Recorded messages from entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, broadcaster John Moore, and McDonald’s Canada founder George Cohon, among others, offered congratulations on the show’s first anniversary.
Guests Gloria Lindsay Luby (a fellow city councillor) and Christine Elliot (MPP for Whitby-Oshawa and wife of federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty) also discussed the challenges facing women in politics and offered advice.
With files from Marco Chown Oved.
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 6:43 PM
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