Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is pictured in his car in 2012.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Acknowledging he made "mistakes," Mr. Ford kept his confessional during two radio appearances Sunday largely to indiscretions with alcohol. When a caller to his show on Newstalk 1010 suggested that he had to know what substances he had ingested, Mr. Ford responded that he couldn't comment on a video he had not seen. In a later interview on AM640, when asked directly about crack, he said he is not an addict and then began talking about drinking too much. Saying he was embarrassed, the mayor used his radio time to detail two specific instances of boozy behaviour, confirming the essence of what had been reported earlier about these events.
St. Patrick's Day, 2012
According to security staff, an intoxicated mayor returned to city hall with an entourage very late that night. He was acting erratically, they said, swearing at staff and saying he thought his car had been stolen. Guards put him in a taxi, according to a security log released by the city. "Being inebriated, you know, 2 o'clock in the morning at City Hall ... You can't do that, you just don't do that," Mr. Ford told his radio show.
Garrison Ball, 2013
The mayor was "incoherent" at the Toronto Garrison Ball, according to Councillor Paul Ainslie. The councillor, then an ally of Mr. Ford, said that he urged the mayor to leave the February gala, which raised money for the Wounded Warriors charity. The mayor has said that the suggestion he was intoxicated at the event is "an outright lie."
Mr. Ford was not asked about his alleged misbehaviour at the event during his radio appearances. He did not put it forward as one of the things for which he was apologizing.
Taste of the Danforth, 2013
During the event, cellphone video began to pop up on Twitter, in which Mr. Ford was spotted saying that he wanted to "party." Although he made light of the behaviour in the following days, he struck a different tune Sunday.
"That was pure stupidity," Mr. Ford told listeners. "I shouldn't have got hammered down at the Danforth. If you're going to have a couple of drinks, you stay at home and that's it, you don't make a public spectacle of yourself."
Distracted driving
Mr. Ford has long refused to have an official driver. He had always brushed off criticism whenever he was spotted at the wheel using his phone or reading, but on Sunday he said it was time to get a driver. About half-way through the show, when asked specifically what he was apologizing for, he said "you can't be talking on the phone."
Oliver Moore