Toronto mayor apologizes to Canadians

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has apologized to Canadians for his past mistakes, but he still rejects calls to resign despite the police recovery of a video that appears to show him smoking crack cocaine.

“I’m the first one to admit I’m not perfect. I have made mistakes. I have made mistakes and all I can do right now is apologize for the mistakes,” Ford stated on Sunday during his weekly radio show.

The comments came just days after Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair confirmed that investigators had recovered the video from an erased hard drive, seized during a raid earlier this year.

Blair said at the time that the video was “consistent” with reported descriptions of Ford smoking from a crack pipe and that he was “disappointed” by what he saw.

During the radio show, Ford also called on Blair to release the recovered video to the public, but the police chief said that it is up to the courts to decide whether the evidence should be made public.

After the police announcement of the recovery, several Toronto city councilors and the city board of trade called for Ford to resign or take a leave of absence over the scandal.

Ford has denied smoking crack. He says he has “no reason” to resign.

The mayor admitted during the radio show to have been intoxicated in public twice, once in August and another time in 2012. He also acknowledged the need to curb his drinking.

This is not the first scandal involving the mayor. Ford was arrested in the US state of Florida in 1999 for marijuana possession and charged with driving under the influence of the drug. He confirmed the arrest during his election campaign in 2010.

Ford’s close friend and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, is also to stand trial on drug and extortion charges. Lisi is accused of threatening two people who had been trying to sell the video of Ford allegedly using crack cocaine to media.