Ford Responds To Immigration Comments
Posted August 18, 2010 3:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Rob Ford stepped outside of City Hall on Wednesday afternoon and greeted reporters with a cheeky “fire away.”
He was there to clarify comments he had made during a televised debate on Tuesday regarding Toronto’s capacity to accept more immigrants.
“What I said, and I stick to my words, is that we can’t take care of 2.5 million people in the city. How are we going to deal with another million people?
“What are the taxes going to be when there’s 3.5 million people? It’s going to cost more to run the city,” Ford said.
Ford has said that Toronto should “shut the door” to refugees. When asked if he still believed that, Ford only said that he had to take care of the people who lived in the city now.
“You can’t stop anyone [from immigrating],” he continued. “This is a federal issue.”
Other mayoral candidates disagreed with Ford’s stance.
“It’s gone well beyond the point of apology,” George Smitherman said.
“The man should slink away,” he continued.
“We take pride in open doors as Torontonians,” Sarah Thomson agreed.
“We want to welcome refugees and we take pride that most of our city is made up of immigrants,” she added.
“I think [his comments] are really showing the true Rob Ford.”
Smitherman concurred.
“It seems more and more if you don’t look like Rob Ford and you don’t talk like Rob Ford, then you don’t fit in his Toronto,” the former MP said.
