Toronto mayor can’t guarantee he will stay sober

TORONTO — Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford said Friday that he won’t guarantee he will stay sober if he’s re-elected, telling a radio show that people will just have to trust him.

Ford, who returned this week to City Council from two months in rehab, said in an interview on Newstalk 1010 that he can’t make promises about something over which he has “no control.”

Radio host Jerry Agar said that as someone who has supported Ford in the past, the lack of guarantees that he won’t drink again if re-elected makes it tough to “take another four-year shot on Rob Ford.”

“That’s up to you,” Ford replied. “You’re going to have to look at my record and compare it to the people I’m running (against) and you’re basically going to have to trust me.”

Ford insisted that returning to lead Canada’s largest city and run for re-election Oct. 27 won’t compromise his recovery.

Ford said earlier this week that he’s used “every drug you can probably think of,” and blamed substance abuse for the racist and homophobic language he’s used. He said he’s used cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms, but not heroin. He acknowledged he smoked crack but denied he was a crack addict. He said he drank at City Hall, but never did drugs at work.

The mayor announced in late April that he would seek help for alcohol addiction after a video surfaced that apparently showed him smoking crack cocaine. Reports last year of a similar video led to months of denials before Ford made his statement about smoking crack in a “drunken stupor.”

A small group of protesters, inspired by Joe Killoran, a shirtless jogger whose rant at Ford during a Canada Day event on July 1 touched off a social media frenzy, gathered outside the radio studios.

“We have no shirts, you have no ethics,” read one sign carried by the protesters, many of whom were bare chested.

Since his return Ford has given a handful of interviews, but has refused to take questions from city hall journalists at large about the circumstances surrounding his alcohol and drug use, the company he kept and offensive remarks he has made.