Pubdate: Sat, 25 May 2013
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2013 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Authors: Greg McArthur,  Shannon Kari, Stephanie Chambers

FAMILY MATTERS

Long before the current controversy at Toronto City Hall, The Globe 
and Mail set out to trace the Ford brothers' rise to prominence. What 
reporters Greg McArthur and Shannon Kari discovered: siblings with 
former ties to drug trafficking, a charge of physical assault, and 
brushes with the law

In the 1980s, anyone wanting to buy hashish had to know where to go. 
And in central Etobicoke, the wealthy Toronto suburb where Mayor Rob 
Ford grew up, one of those places was James Gardens. In the evening, 
the sports cars often wound along Edenbridge Drive, past the gated 
homes and the lawn-bowling pitches, until they reached the U-shaped 
parking lot. By nightfall, the public park was a hash drive-thru. One 
former street dealer, whom we will call "Justin," described the scene 
as "an assembly line."

There were usually a number of dealers to choose from, some of them 
supplied by a mainstay at James Gardens - a young man with the 
hulk-like frame and mop of bright blond hair: Doug Ford. "Most people 
didn't approach Doug looking for product. You went to the guys that 
he supplied. Because if Doug didn't know you and trust you, he 
wouldn't even roll down his window," Justin said.

Today, Mr. Ford is a member of Toronto's city council - and no 
ordinary councillor. First elected in 2010 as his brother was swept 
into the mayor's office, he has emerged as a truly powerful figure at 
City Hall -- trying to overhaul plans for Toronto's waterfront less 
than a year after arriving. He also has higher aspirations, and has 
said he wants to follow in the footsteps of his father, Doug Ford 
Sr., by running in the next provincial election as a Conservative.

Meanwhile, he serves as his brother's de facto spokesman. As Toronto 
is gripped by allegations that its mayor was captured on a homemade 
video smoking what appears to be crack cocaine and his office 
descends into disarray - his chief of staff was fired on Thursday - 
Doug Ford has been the only person to mount a spirited public defence 
of his largely silent sibling. On Friday, after the Mayor finally 
made a statement about the accusation, he was the one who fielded 
questions from the press.

Well before the events of the past week, The Globe and Mail began to 
research the Ford brothers in an effort to chronicle their lives 
before rising to prominence in Canada's largest city. Over the past 
18 months, it has sought out and interviewed dozens of people who 
knew them in their formative years.

What has emerged is a portrait of a family once deeply immersed in 
the illegal drug scene. All three of the mayor's older siblings - 
brother Randy, 51, and sister Kathy, 52, as well as Doug, 48 - have 
had ties to drug traffickers.

Ten people who grew up with Doug Ford - a group that includes two 
former hashish suppliers, three street-level drug dealers and a 
number of casual users of hash - have described in a series of 
interviews how for several years Mr. Ford was a go-to dealer of hash. 
These sources had varying degrees of knowledge of his activities: 
Some said they purchased hash directly from him, some said they 
supplied him, while others said they observed him handling large 
quantities of the drug.

The events they described took place years ago, but as mayor, Rob 
Ford has surrounded himself with people from his past. Most recently 
he hired someone for his office whose long history with the Fords, 
the sources said, includes selling hashish with the mayor's brother.

The Globe wrote to Doug Ford outlining what the sources said about 
him, and received a response from Gavin Tighe, his lawyer, who said 
the allegations were false. "Your references to unnamed alleged 
sources of information represent the height of irresponsible and 
unprofessional journalism given the gravely serious and specious 
allegations of substantial criminal conduct."

There's nothing on the public record that The Globe has accessed that 
shows Doug Ford has ever been criminally charged for illegal drug 
possession or trafficking. But some of the sources said that, in the 
affluent pocket of Etobicoke where the Fords grew up, he was someone 
who sold not only to users and street-level dealers, but to dealers 
one rung higher than those on the street. His tenure as a dealer, 
many of the sources say, lasted about seven years until 1986, the 
year he turned 22. "That was his heyday," said "Robert," one of the 
former drug dealers who agreed to an interview on the condition he 
not be identified by name.

Upon being approached, the sources declined to speak if identified, 
saying they feared the consequences of outing themselves as former 
users and sellers of illegal drugs.

The Globe also tried to contact retired police officers who 
investigated drugs in the area at the time. One said he had no 
recollection of encountering the Fords.

Another, whose name appeared on court documents in relation to 
allegations of assault and forcible confinement committed by Randy 
Ford, said he could not recall the incident. Several did not respond.

Since entering public life, both Fords have been ardent supporters of 
Toronto police and have campaigned, over the years, on increasing the 
police presence on Etobicoke's streets. In December, 2011, Doug Ford 
showed up, unannounced, at a police press conference to trumpet the 
force's crackdown on a network of drug dealers who were selling, 
among other things, marijuana.

Doug, like Rob, frequently promotes the Ford family as a type of 
brand - one that started with their late father's four-year tenure as 
an MPP in the government of former Ontario premier Mike Harris. Doug 
Ford is fond of invoking his family's contributions to the community. 
Through his involvement with the Rotary Club of Etobicoke, he has 
helped to organize events like the Etobicoke Fall Fair. He frequently 
mentions the many sports teams that the Ford family business, Deco 
Labels and Tags, has sponsored over the years. He also cites the many 
football teams his younger brother has coached, and the hordes of 
people - he puts the figure at 25,000 - the Fords have entertained at 
their annual backyard barbecue.

But long before he took over the family business and pursued public 
office, Doug Ford's circle of friends was a group of young people who 
called themselves the RY Drifters, after the Royal York Plaza, a 
strip mall many of them frequented.

The Fords' neighbourhood was paradoxical in some respects. It teemed 
with wealth; families who settled there after the Second World War, 
such as the Fidanis and the Brattys, would become known as the 
biggest players in Toronto-area land development. As his sticker and 
label business flourished, Doug Ford Sr. was featured in the society 
pages of The Globe, rubbing elbows with cabinet ministers, senators 
and members of the Eaton family.

But the prosperity disguised a disturbing trend among many of the 
area's young adults - an attraction to crime that went beyond typical 
teenage rebellion. Former Ford associates interviewed for this story 
identified at least 10 RY Drifters who became heroin addicts, some of 
whom turned to break-ins and robberies to support their habits.

In recent years, the Ford family home has become known for the annual 
barbecue, attended by hundreds of neighbours and a Who's Who of 
Conservative luminaries - including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 
federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. But in the 1980s, the finished 
basement at 15 Weston Wood Rd. was one of the many places Doug Ford 
did business, the sources said.

"Justin" recalled descending to the basement on one occasion to buy 
hash from Mr. Ford, and on numerous other occasions watching as it was sold.

He said he couldn't recall exactly how much hash he purchased that 
day, but that it was enough to require a triple-beam balance scale - 
the kind used in most high-school science classes. Normally, 
street-level dealers in that era relied on Pesola scales, the compact 
tubes often used by fishermen to weigh their catch. "If you went over 
[a quarter-pound], you had to go up to the three beamers - because 
you could get up to a few pounds on it," he explained.

As a dealer, Doug Ford was not highly visible. Another source, "Tom," 
who also supplied street-level dealers and has a long criminal 
record, said his girlfriend at the time would complain, whenever he 
was arrested, that he needed to be more calculating "like Doug." Mr. 
Ford's approach, sources said, was to supply a select group that in 
turn distributed smaller amounts across Etobicoke.

As well as James Gardens, a popular place to buy hash was the Royal 
York Plaza, also known as The Drift, because it offered a clear line 
of sight down Royal York Road and fair warning of any approaching 
police cruisers.

The mall is located steps from the Fords' childhood home. "If [Doug] 
wasn't going out, someone would go down to the house and pick it up 
and bring it down to the Royal York Plaza," said "Sheila," adding 
that she was an RY Drifter who bought small quantities of hash from 
Mr. Ford, and knew him to supply street-level dealers. "If Doug 
wasn't around, people ... would sell it for him. It was an 
operation." The quantities that Mr. Ford handled were, at times, 
substantial. "Michael" said he remembered buying hash from Doug Ford 
at least half a dozen times - before he found a cheaper source - and 
that each time he bought between one-quarter and one-half of a pound. 
He said that a quarter-pound sold for between $400 and $425.

Like many of the street-level dealers interviewed, he said he sold 
hash in order to support his own smoking habits. When asked where Mr. 
Ford fit in the hierarchy of dealers in their neighbourhood, he 
replied: "He'd be at the top."

Turf wars were rare. Relations between dealers were so good, in fact, 
that in times of short supply, competitors turned to each other for 
help. "Robert," a former high-volume seller of hash, said he had an 
arrangement with Mr. Ford. "He would buy off me, sometimes I would 
buy off him."

"Tom," the high-volume hash dealer who admired Mr. Ford's ability to 
avoid scrutiny, also said he and Doug helped each other out during 
shortages. "We had all figured out that that kept the cops away. 
'Let's keep things low-profile. Why start fights? There's enough 
money in it for everybody.' And most people agreed with that. Once 
the fights start and the guns come out, then the cops will be in and 
it will ruin it for everybody."

But the shunning of strong-arm tactics was not universal.

Marco Orlando had thick, curly black hair and round cheeks. He and 
his parents, Italian immigrants, lived in a bungalow on a quiet 
cul-de-sac a short walk from the Ford family home.

He was also supplied a lot of drugs on credit but was notoriously 
unreliable when it came to paying for them. Among his suppliers, the 
suspicion was that Marco was sharing his illicit proceeds with his 
parents and feigning poverty. So two weeks before Christmas, they 
hatched a plan, said "Tom," a drug dealer who said he was involved in 
the scheme.

On a Tuesday night, with the usual throng of young adults outside the 
Bank of Montreal at the Royal York Plaza, Marco was jumped, beaten 
and thrown into a car. He was driven more than 30 kilometres to a 
basement in Bolton, where someone called his parents, demanding they 
hand over the money. For 10 hours, Mr. Orlando was captive, but his 
parents didn't panic. Instead, they called the police. Within three 
days, all three men allegedly involved in the plot were under arrest. 
("The powers-that-be blow things all out of proportion, and I guess 
technically it is kidnapping, but in our world, he owed us $5,000," said Tom.)

One of those arrested was Randy Ford, who was 24 at the time. Court 
records retrieved from the Archives of Ontario show that he was 
charged with assault causing bodily harm and the forcible confinement 
of Mr. Orlando. The records do not disclose how the case was 
resolved. Randy Ford's lawyer at the time, Dennis Morris - currently 
representing Rob Ford in the controversy over the alleged 
crack-cocaine video - said he did not recall the incident. He 
questioned the allegations surrounding the Ford family's past: 
"What's the point, other than a smear campaign?"

Since his brothers became leaders of Canada's largest city, Randy has 
largely remained in the background. Like them, he has blond hair and 
a wide frame; he also drives a Cadillac Escalade. One of the few 
times he has been photographed by the media was for a Toronto Star 
article during the 2010 election campaign. He posed with his brothers 
in front of a portrait of their father at the family business, where 
Randy oversees manufacturing. During the election-night speeches at 
the Toronto Congress Centre, he stood silently behind Doug, wearing a 
dark cowboy hat.

But in the past, he was much less low-key. Whether on his motorcycle 
or at the helm heel of the family sailboat - The Raymoni - he always 
went full throttle. When he fought, which was often, it was usually a 
one-sided affair.

"He was a terror," said Leo, another former associate of Doug Ford.

Numerous sources identified Randy Ford as former drug dealer, 
including one who identified himself as former partner, but he and 
Doug maintained distinctly separate operations. "Doug, being savvy as 
he was and as business-minded as he was, knew his brother was just 
too volatile," said "Justin," the street-level dealer who said he was 
supplied by Doug Ford.

The eldest Ford sibling, Kathy, has been subjected to media scrutiny 
over the years, primarily because she has been linked to a number of 
bizarre, violent and sensational incidents.

Most recently, in January, 2012, her long-time boyfriend, a convicted 
cocaine and hash dealer named Scott MacIntyre, was charged with 
threatening to murder the mayor at his Etobicoke home. He eventually 
pleaded guilty to a lesser offence and was given credit for time served.

(In a brief interview with CBC after the alleged death threat, Doug 
Ford said: "To be honest with you, I really don't know Scott 
MacIntyre." Photographs and video taken on the night of the 2010 
election show that Mr. MacIntyre was part of the small group of 
family members celebrating with the new mayor, his wife, Renata, and Doug.)

Ms. Ford's relationship with Mr. MacIntyre is even more perplexing 
because of an earlier incident: In 2005, he and another man were 
accused of shooting her in the face during an altercation in her 
parents' basement. She survived the blast and was rushed to hospital, 
while Mr. MacIntyre fled in her mother's Jaguar. Crown prosecutors 
later dropped numerous charges against him, while his co-accused, 
Michael Patania, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a handgun.

But even before that, there was gunplay - and it was fatal. Seven 
years earlier, Ms. Ford's lover was fatally shot by her ex-husband, a 
drug addict named Ennio Stirpe. At his trial, Mr. Stirpe testified 
that his victim, Michael Kiklas, was a martial artist, which forced 
him to bring along the shotgun as "an equalizer."

Not mentioned in the press at the time was the fact that Mr. Kiklas 
was a white supremacist - a group with which Ms. Ford associated in the 1980s.

Her friends included Gary MacFarlane, a founding member of the 
short-lived Canadian chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the late 
Wolfgang Droege, perhaps the most notorious white supremacist in 
Canadian history, a former Klansman told The Globe in an interview. 
Two other former associates of Ms. Ford confirmed her association 
with known white supremacists.

Among Mr. Droege's numerous criminal endeavours, he also sold cocaine 
and marijuana, which led to his death in 2005 when he was killed by a 
customer. Mr. Droege was incarcerated for much of the 1980s in U.S. 
prisons - both for drug trafficking and for his role in a bizarre 
plot to overthrow the government of Dominica in the Caribbean.

The former Klansman, who agreed to answer questions by e-mail on 
condition of anonymity, confirmed that Kathy Ford was close to the 
movement, but he said he couldn't recall meeting any of the Ford 
brothers. He described hanging out in the Fords' basement and being 
snubbed by Doug Sr. when Ms. Ford invited him to a party on the 
family boat. Her father, the former Klansman said, clearly did not 
approve of his beliefs, while she was engaging and fun but hardly a 
committed soldier in the race war.

"Some people are real 'believers' and know all the history, dates, 
facts etc... Others just join to piss off their parents, or carry out 
some other act of personal rebellion," he wrote. "Clearly [Kathy] was 
the latter camp."

It remains unclear how much Mayor Ford was exposed to his siblings' 
escapades and their issues with illegal drugs. He is considerably 
younger - Doug, the closest, is five years older. But at least one of 
Doug's closest and oldest friends has become an official adviser to 
the mayor's office. Several sources have identified David Price as a 
former participant in Doug Ford's hashish enterprise.

The morning after the Toronto Star and the U.S. gossip website Gawker 
alleged that journalists with both organizations had viewed a 
homemade video of the mayor smoking crack, a throng of reporters 
waited outside his home. Mr. Ford walked past them, uttered only four 
words - "these allegations are ridiculous" - and hopped into his SUV.

After driving only a few feet, he pulled to the side of the road and 
rolled down his window to chat with a man in a sunglasses and a blue 
shirt, Mr. Price. Moments later, Mr. Price appeared again, this time 
standing between videographers and Mr. Ford as they tried to film the 
mayor at the gas station at the end of his street.

Since he arrived at City Hall, the mayor's office has said almost 
nothing about what Mr. Price, called director of logistics and 
operations, is there to do. Concerning the hiring of Mr. Price, Doug 
Ford told Globe and Mail city hall reporter Elizabeth Church that 
"you can't teach loyalty."

Mr. Price first appeared in the office mere days after The Toronto 
Star revealed that the mayor had been asked to leave a military 
benefit gala by Councillor Paul Ainslie allegedly because he appeared 
intoxicated.

A few months before Mr. Price became a public official, he was 
approached by a Star reporter covering a football game being played 
by the high-school team coached by Mr. Ford. The reporter quoted Mr. 
Price as saying that he had coached the mayor in high school, and 
ever since he has been described in media reports as Rob Ford's 
former football coach turned aide.

However, four former dealers who spoke with The Globe described Mr. 
Price as a participant in Doug Ford's hash business in the 1980s.

Both men attended Scarlett Heights Collegiate Institute, where they 
played football and hockey. "Michael," a former street-level dealer, 
said he recalls being approached by a young David Price, who told him 
that Doug Ford had come into a large supply of hash. "I remember 
buying a quarter-pound," he said.

"Robert," once a large-scale supplier, called Mr. Price "Dougie's 
close ally" and described their hash business as "a partnership."

"Justin," a former street dealer, said: "They were two peas in a pod. 
They were both big, tough boys. It just became a natural thing."

He added: "Doug brought the supply, and Dave brought the demand."

According to Mr. Price's LinkedIn page, which has been taken down 
since he joined the mayor's office, he was Doug Ford's campaign 
manager in 2010, and graduated from York University in 1987 with a 
degree in economics and international relations.

Following that, he worked for decades at State Street Canada, a 
financial services company that provides investment management for 
institutional investors, such as pension and mutual funds. One former 
colleague described him as hard-working, very oriented toward 
customer service, and extremely opinionated when it came to politics. 
He left the company in 2011.

Mr. Price did not respond to several requests for comment.

Rob Ford was not a player in the Etobicoke drug trade. Several 
sources said they saw him around his brothers as they were doing 
business, but they said he didn't seem to be involved in a significant way.

It is difficult to determine what it was like for him growing up in 
this environment. His spokesman did not respond to requests for 
interviews. His closest friends from high school declined interview 
requests. Generally, it was only people who were on his periphery who 
agreed to speak.

As a teenager, the future mayor committed to football like it was a 
religion. He co-captained his junior team at Scarlett Heights 
Collegiate, which went a dismal 1-5 in the regular season one year, 
but shocked the league in the playoffs by making it to the 
championship and upsetting undefeated Etobicoke Collegiate. A 
yearbook photograph shows that "Robbie" - as he was known then - wore 
his leather championship jacket for at least three years after that victory.

He once played on Etobicoke's all-star team, a mixed bag of players 
from different high schools that was assembled in the summer to face 
off against all-star teams from Toronto's other boroughs.

It was a short and intense two weeks of back-to-back practices, which 
was necessary to inject cohesion into a mixed bag of young men who 
didn't know each other. Before each practice, they were told to run a 
mile. If they completed the run in under six minutes, they didn't 
have to complete it again for the rest of training camp. But if they 
failed, they had to keep running it at the start of every practice 
until they came in under the mark.

After a few days, there was only one person left chugging around the track.

"I remember Rob, who was about the same size as he is now, running 
this thing every day for like two weeks until he was the only guy 
running - but still giving it 100 per cent at the beginning of every 
practice until he finally made it," said Mike Lawler, a former 
Scarlett Heights coach.

"I just thought it took a lot for a kid to do that and not say 'to 
hell with it.' "

Another former Scarlett Heights football coach, Art Robinson, 
described young Rob as a leader, who was regularly the foreman in his 
shop class. There were even a few occasions, Mr. Robinson said, that 
Rob alerted him to students smoking pot on school grounds.

He went on to attend Carleton University. where he played football 
but never left the bench, one former teammate said. He dropped out in 
1990, the end of his first year, he has told the online news service Openfile.

After that, he joined the family business, but unlike Doug, who 
ambitiously worked to grow the company, helping it expand to Chicago, 
his heart was not in it, several former employees said.

"Robbie just did not have the passion for labels," one long-time 
employee said. "He did what he had to do because it was the family 
business, but he did not show true passion until he got into politics."

His first run for public office came when he was 27, a council 
election that he lost. Undeterred, he became involved in several 
civic-minded campaigns - including one that targeted drug dealers and buyers.

In 1998, he teamed with his father and Toronto police for an 
unorthodox project, he later told The Etobicoke Guardian. In what 
would be the start of his unwavering tough-on-crime platform, he - at 
the time, 29 and unelected - and Doug Sr. - a backbencher at Queen's 
Park - travelled to Scarlettwood Courts, an Etobicoke public-housing 
complex, to rid it of illegal drugs.

"When people would drive through to buy drugs, we'd send the owner of 
the car a letter. It would tell them not come back to the area," Mr. 
Ford told the Guardian after he was elected to City Council in 2000. 
He said his crime-fighting campaign had helped him win the election 
and promised to take the battle to other low-income neighbourhoods.

But his personal war on drugs was short-lived. The year after their 
letter-writing campaign, he was arrested in Florida after being 
pulled over for impaired driving. Police also found a joint in his 
pocket - an offence not revealed until his 2010 mayoral campaign.

Throughout the reporting of this story, Doug Ford made several phone 
calls to Globe managers and reporters to complain about the questions 
being asked.

In November, 2011, he called a reporter in the evening to complain 
about the newspaper's "yellow" and "gutter" journalism.

"I'm getting calls from people I haven't talked to in 20 years," he 
said. When asked why he was so upset, he responded that he objected 
to "the type of questions" being asked.

"This is going to get ugly," he said, explaining that he was too 
"hot" at that moment to consider setting up a formal sit-down interview.

His call appeared to have been prompted by a brief interview The 
Globe had conducted that day, when a reporter asked a former 
associate about the RY Drifters - a group that he said never existed.

"It's like a folk tale," he said.

*

[sidebar]

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

John Stackhouse, Editor-in-chief

This weekend, The Globe and Mail is publishing an extensive 
examination of the Toronto Ford family's decades-old connection to 
illicit drugs. We are doing so with utmost caution, journalistic 
rigour and legal scrutiny - ultimately believing that Torontonians 
and, more broadly, Canadians need to understand the background of the 
most politically powerful family in the country's biggest city.

An 18-month investigation by reporters Greg McArthur and Shannon Kari 
reveals that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's brother Doug sold hashish for 
several years in the 1980s, in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. 
Another brother, Randy, was also involved in the drug trade, and 
charged in 1986 in relation to a drug-related kidnapping. Their 
sister, Kathy, has been the victim of drug-related gun violence.

Mr. McArthur, one of the country's most respected investigative 
reporters, began work on this project in late 2011, in an attempt to 
detail the history of the Fords. Although Rob Ford had been 
well-documented as a councillor and mayor, little existed on the 
public record about his older brother Doug, who has emerged as a 
force in the mayor's office and across the city.

We have approached Rob and Doug Ford several times to speak to the 
allegations. A senior Globe editor visited Doug Ford, privately, to 
explain the purpose of our research. Doug Ford rebuffed our 
entreaties, and aggressively threatened legal action. As we 
approached publication, we returned to three fundamental questions 
that readers should rightly ask of us:

How reliable is our information?

We located and interviewed 10 people who claimed to have contact with 
Doug Ford over illicit drugs. Each individual said they were afraid 
to attach their name to the story, citing the Ford family's power in Toronto.

They did, however, speak at length, and in detail. Throughout we 
consulted with our legal counsel.

Is this information of public interest?

Rob and Doug Ford hold sway over much of the city's business, and 
have influence on a range of public affairs, including policing. They 
have campaigned on antidrug platforms, as outlined in the story, and 
spoken in recent years of the need to do more to stop drug-related 
crime, without ever acknowledging the family's own struggles. The 
rest of city council, and citizens at large, deserve to understand 
the moral record of their leaders. In most matters, public or 
private, character matters.

Why now?

Our investigation has been ongoing since late 2011. The reporters 
were sent back multiple times to find more witnesses, corroborate 
details and further authenticate information provided in previous 
interviews. We decided to publish their work this week, given the 
intense public interest around the Ford family and alleged substance 
abuse. After Rob Ford spoke to the media on Friday afternoon, 
carefully saying he does not use crack cocaine and is not addicted to 
crack cocaine, a group of senior editors met again, reviewed the 
story, and concluded again that it is in the public interest to 
publish. Indeed, we felt it would be irresponsible not to share this 
information with the public, at this time.
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