The black Cadillac Escalade owned by Toronto Mayor Rob Ford sits in the impound lot at Northland Towing & Recovery in Gravenhurst, Ont., May 22, 2014. An Ontario Provincial Police statement said that 36-year-old Lee Anne McRobb of Muskoka Lakes Township is facing charges of impaired driving and driving with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood after Bracebridge officers stopped her in a black Cadillac Escalade. (J.P. Moczulski for The Globe and Mail)The Globe and Mail
A rehab facility in Ontario's cottage country has confirmed that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is undergoing treatment at their clinic.
GreeneStone Clinic Muskoka sent out a press release Friday afternoon confirming that the Toronto mayor is at their facility. The clinic said it is "releasing this information with Mr. Ford's consent."
GreeneStone is a residential addiction treatment centre in Bala, Ontario, just a few hours north of Toronto.
"We ask that the public and the media respect the privacy of all the patients at GreeneStone, to ensure they receive the most comprehensive and effective treatment," the statement read. "We take our patient care and confidentiality very seriously and as a result will not be commenting further on this matter."
The mayor's presence has created a flurry of media attention in the normally quiet cottage country. Just last week, Mr. Ford was spotted in Bracebridge, posing for photographs with local residents. And a few days later, the mayor's car was impounded after a local Muskoka resident was arrested behind the wheel and charged with impaired driving.
GreeneStone's statement listed as the contact information Randi Rahamim, one of the principals at Navigator, a high-profile public relations firm in Toronto.
Ms. Rahamim said that GreeneStone has received "a number of inquiries and trespassing, and as a result and in order to protect their patients, they've decided to release the information."
She would not say when the mayor first checked into the facility, or how long he is expected to stay.
The embattled Toronto mayor has been on a leave of absence for the past two weeks since The Globe and Mail reported the existence of new footage showing Mr. Ford smoking what is allegedly crack cocaine. Just last week, he was spotted in cottage country, and his brother Doug told media he was out of rehab for a few hours.
Ann Hui