Coun. Doug Ford meets Margaret Atwood at arts event
Posted September 21, 2011 7:24 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Coun. Doug Ford will now be able to recognize author Margaret Atwood should they ever pass each other on the street.
After a couple of months of trading barbs in the media and online, the politician and the renowned writer met at an arts event Tuesday night and even posed for a photograph, snapped by Coun. Michael Thompson.
Atwood, a prolific tweeter, had voiced her opposition to a recommendation to close library branches to save money at city hall and helped to circulate an online petition against the idea in July.
Coun. Ford fuelled the debate when he said he probably wouldn’t recognize Atwood if he passed her on the street. His claim that there are more libraries than Tim Hortons in his north Etobicoke ward provided more fodder for Atwood’s online posts.
Some of the writer’s Twitter followers even called on her to run for mayor.
Atwood posted a tweet about meeting Coun. Ford Tuesday night.
“T-pals, UnBLeevAbul! I just met D. Ford! At a NotTimmies Arts Party! (He knows what I look like now! :D) Sez #libraries will not be cut! :D,” she posted.
The meeting happened at a send-off party for Mayor Rob Ford’s former arts adviser, Jeff Melanson, who’s taken a position at the Banff Centre for the Arts, according to a report in the Toronto Star.
Thompson reportedly plans to auction off the original photo and donate the proceeds to the library system.
