Councilor and former Toronto mayor Rob Ford will be laid to rest Wednesday following a full funeral procession through the city, an unprecedented civic honor for a mayor – and especially for one who had such an eccentric time in office.
The procession will begin at Toronto City Hall at 10:30 a.m. and end at St. James Cathedral, where a funeral service will be held at noon. Only two sitting mayors have been given a public memorial at City Hall, where Ford lay in repose with the blessing of Mayor John Tory, according to the Toronto Star.
Hundreds of mourners lined up Monday and Tuesday at City Hall to say goodbye to the man who, at one time, drew infamy to the most populated city in Canada.
Ford died March 22 after battling a rare, aggressive cancer that first appeared in his abdomen two years ago and reappeared in his bladder last year. His chief of staff, Dan Jacobs, confirmed in early March that the 46-year-old had not responded to chemotherapy and was moved to palliative care.
He was elected as Toronto’s mayor in 2010 and served until 2014 when colleagues stripped him of his title following a few bizarre moments in 2013.
He admitted to using crack cocaine, public drunkenness and drinking and driving. On one video, he was caught smoking crack; on another he threatened “murder” in an incoherent rant. In spite of his behavior, he was treasured by the city of Toronto. So much so that he was elected by a landslide vote to his old City Council seat in October 2014, a job he held until his death.
"No Toronto mayor has been on Jimmy Kimmel and the late-night talk shows," Brett McCaig, co-creator of Rob Ford: The Musical, which played in Toronto in 2014, said March 22. "Toronto has never been so famous in pop culture as it was in the glory days of Rob Ford."
Ford is survived by his wife of 16 years, Renata, and two children, Stephanie and Doug.
Ford’s family will host a celebration of his life at the Toronto Congress Centre at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
