Toronto’s controversial ex-Mayor Rob Ford dies

Controversial former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, whose career was plagued by scandals resulting from his alcohol and drug abuse, died Tuesday of cancer, his family said. He was 46.

Ford, married and the father of two boys, became Toronto’s mayor in 2010 in a campaign in which he attacked the elites of Canada’s largest city. At the time, few could foresee that the businessman and conservative politician’s mandate would be made up of a series of scandals.

At the beginning of his mayoral term rumors began to surface about his addictions, but it was not until 2013 that the scandal broke, when The Toronto Star reported the existence of a video in which Ford appears smoking crack cocaine.

For months, Ford denied his drug consumption or the existence of the video, but when Toronto police made a raid and arrested a group of drug traffickers who were in possession of the video, the thenmayor acknowledged that he had indeed smoked crack.

But it was only after the appearance, in early 2014, of a second video of Ford smoking crack and other controversies that he took two months off to enter a rehab clinic.

Ford wanted to be reelected as Toronto’s mayor and ran once again for the office in the 2014 elections, but in the middle of the campaign, in midSeptember, he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his abdomen, which forced him to withdraw his candidacy, though he did win a seat on the city council.

From that point on, Ford kept his public appearances to a minimum while he was receiving treatment for the disease.