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The Only Average Guy: Inside the Uncommon World of Rob Ford
The first book to go beyond the scandal and distraction of the world's most infamous local politician, and reveal what drives Rob Ford and the many voters who steadfastly support him.
Eye-opening and at times frightening, The Only Average Guy cuts through the uproar that followed Ford everywhere. A journalist before entering politics, Filion peels back the layers of an extremely complicated man. Weaving together the personal and political stories, he explains how Ford's tragic weaknesses helped propel him to power before leading to his inevitable failure. Through Ford, the book also explains the growing North American phenomenon by which angry voters are attracted to outspoken candidates flaunting outrageous flaws.
For fifteen years, Toronto city councillor John Filion has had an uncommon relationship with Rob Ford. Sitting two seats away from the wildly unpredictable councillor from Etobicoke, who served as mayor from 2010 to 2014, Filion formed an unlikely camaraderie that allowed him to look beyond Rob's red-faced persona, seeing a boy still longing for the approval of his father, struggling with the impossible expectations of a family that fancied itself a political dynasty.
Eye-opening and at times frightening, The Only Average Guy cuts through the uproar that followed Ford everywhere. A journalist before entering politics, Filion peels back the layers of an extremely complicated man. Weaving together the personal and political stories, he explains how Ford's tragic weaknesses helped propel him to power before leading to his inevitable failure. Through Ford, the book also explains the growing North American phenomenon by which angry voters are attracted to outspoken candidates flaunting outrageous flaws.
For fifteen years, Toronto city councillor John Filion has had an uncommon relationship with Rob Ford. Sitting two seats away from the wildly unpredictable councillor from Etobicoke, who served as mayor from 2010 to 2014, Filion formed an unlikely camaraderie that allowed him to look beyond Rob's red-faced persona, seeing a boy still longing for the approval of his father, struggling with the impossible expectations of a family that fancied itself a political dynasty.
- GenresPoliticsNonfictionCanada
368 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2015
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September 30, 2019
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was like a Rorschach text, writes Councillor John Filion. “What they see says more about them than about the splotches on the paper.”
As a longtime city hall insider, Filion offers up detailed insight into Ford’s character and it’s hard not to feel sympathy for Rob Ford. His brother Doug emerges as the bigger villain — ruthless and scheming, undermining his brother while pretending to support him, using him to further his own career, which he mapped out in five-year plans.
While Robyn Doolittle’s excellent book on Rob Ford offers a behind-the-scenes into the reporting process behind the story of the Fords, Filion had better access, including personal anecdotes of his friendship with Rob and several long interviews with Doug Ford. He also provides insight into what was going on behind closed doors at Toronto City Hall, including how he himself struck a deal with the unions to cleverly unite councillors against Rob Ford as mayor.
This book is a must-read for students of politics, Toronto City Hall and Shakespearean tragedy.
The story of the Fords reads like a novel. I couldn’t put this book down.
As a longtime city hall insider, Filion offers up detailed insight into Ford’s character and it’s hard not to feel sympathy for Rob Ford. His brother Doug emerges as the bigger villain — ruthless and scheming, undermining his brother while pretending to support him, using him to further his own career, which he mapped out in five-year plans.
While Robyn Doolittle’s excellent book on Rob Ford offers a behind-the-scenes into the reporting process behind the story of the Fords, Filion had better access, including personal anecdotes of his friendship with Rob and several long interviews with Doug Ford. He also provides insight into what was going on behind closed doors at Toronto City Hall, including how he himself struck a deal with the unions to cleverly unite councillors against Rob Ford as mayor.
This book is a must-read for students of politics, Toronto City Hall and Shakespearean tragedy.
The story of the Fords reads like a novel. I couldn’t put this book down.
November 1, 2015
Insightful and sympathetic to the human that is Rob Ford, I really enjoyed this.
December 29, 2017
John Filion's "The Only Average Guy" often made me shake my head in disbelief, howl in rage, and sometimes even laugh very hard. I can say a lot of things about this book (and I will) but the most pleasurable part of it (and I will get to its shortcomings) is that it made me think. Plenty.
Filion's premise is that the mayoralty was a bridge too far for Rob Ford. I would add that anything was possible for Rob Ford, except adjusting to reality.
For me the point of departure are the Ford brothers, what we have in common and what makes them different.
For example, like Rob Ford I too fell in love with football as a youth. But it ended for me, I think, about the time puberty hit. With Rob Ford the passion never died.
Like Doug Ford, I run an independent business. In my case, I started mine from scratch. Doug took over his Dad's business. Fair enough. But to call on that experience as authority for slamming government is, I think, simplistic.
But unlike both of these dudes, I've actually worked in government. Municipal. Provincial. Federal. Five different agencies at last count. So when these guys start to blather on about government waste, I had a front row seat. Yes, government wastes money. I've seen it. And pledging to reduce waste in government is an honourable pursuit. But business also wastes resources. I've seen that, too, in my own business and in other people's businesses, too.
Waste is inevitable when nothing is a given. You make mistakes, you learn by your mistakes (sometimes). Think Target Canada. Think about the waste when the managers of Enron blew up the company by cheating and getting caught. Or Global Crossing. Or Worldcom. It happens in smaller much less dramatic ways too, unpublicized.
In government, ordinary people make laws and ask other ordinary people to carry them out, but there is rarely a blueprint on how to get things right. It takes time. And times change. Things that worked well once are not necessarily the right thing for later on. And indeed sometimes the laws end up being a waste of everybody's time.
In the case of Canadian governments, WE MADE THOSE LAWS. All politicians, left and right, claim to be reformers of some sort. For the Fords to waltz into municipal government and claim that they were going to change things...yeah, that made them typical politicians. Nothing new. There are a lot of laws in place the day they walked in the door. Already. You gonna change the laws? Okay. But you gonna be here until the cows come home, buddy, cause THERE'S A WHOLE MESS OF LAWS!!!!
And you don't start out by breaking the law.
Rob Ford didn't appreciate that when he became a councillor and mayor he was sworn to uphold those laws. That is a big responsibility. First uphold, later fix.
Rob Ford also didn't appreciate how many judgements he would be called upon to make, and how much information would crowd his life as mayor. For a person of his average intelligence, it must have been crushing.
Unlike the Fords, I have also been a reporter for a daily newspaper, so I can see things from the other side when the Fords claim that the Toronto Star or whomever has it in for them. In this very period while the media are raking Rob Ford over the coals the media are fighting for their livelihood, too. Online news is eating their lunch. Are the media in a frenzy? You bet! HuffPo, Gawker, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed, and all those other online services are destroying the press.
How the "right" took the Fords lead in trying dismantle municipal programs is worth a better discussion than is offered in this book. I didn't notice any big improvements in my commercial taxes while they were in office. Nor did I see any big improvements to inequities in the municipal tax system, but this may be rooted in provincial laws more so than municipal. This is one part of the story that isn't finished.
The Ford brothers are strange, and their family stranger yet but not so strange that one can't see the hand of an alcoholic father behind the bullying, the bragging, and the holier-than-thou attitude. Nowhere in the book does Filion say it but it is certainly there between the lines.
What else could explain the father's inability to show affection to his children? Maybe he was just a quiet kind of guy. Not. He was loud. He bragged about how poor he was as a youth and was able to build a successful company. And he seems to have complained an awful lot about government employees making a living for doing nothing.
My father also grew up in the Depression. He was born in 1919. Ford's father, by comparison, was born in 1933 and largely missed the Depression as a youngster. My father didn't swear. He didn't drink. He certainly never bullied people. He was a very successful businessman as well. Like Ford Sr. he also ran for public office.
But I never heard him bitch and moan about how easy everybody else had it in comparison. My dad greased cars in his uncle's garage. He hawked hotdogs at the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball games, and he sold insurance door-to-door.
Like Ford Sr. he also got help from others in the early days of his business but he never tried to hide it.
I think Ford Sr. had more going on in his life. Things we don't hear about, not in this book.
And these are some of the things I would have liked to know which helped Rob Ford become obese, become an alcoholic, druggy, a wife-beater, and from what I tell, a weird football coach.
The bigotry, the lying, the substance abuse, the bad language, the resentment, and above all the anger. While this book does a good job bringing these aspects of Rob Ford's personality to the forefront, it does not fill in the whys. Neither Rob nor Doug Ford had much reason to be angry with anybody before they got into politics.
Except maybe their sister's lousy choice of husbands.
Another weakness in this book are the 10 missing years between when Rob left Carelton University in 1990 -- he quit university after one year, we are told, ostensibly because he didn't make the football team -- and when he was first elected to office. Supposedly he worked at his father's business with Doug. He was a salesman. Was he a good salesman? Did he work hard? What kind of an organization was his company Deco like to work for in those days? How does somebody as angry and bitter as Doug build a big company? In this book we simply don't find out.
From the absence of any management skills in government, we can assume that Rob never learned a day of management skills in his life, unless you count running a high school football team management experience. hey, it could be. Another reason to ask yourself why Rob Ford wanted to be Mayor of Toronto, easily one of the weakest executive jobs in Canada.
Mayor Rob leaned on city employees to do his personal tasks. He drank alcohol far beyond moderation in his office and drove while intoxicated. He bullied and used offensive language to his staff. Whether he liked to believe it or not, he was a corrupt politician, breaking laws and the morays of the office he held. Did he take large sums from the public treasury? I doubt it.
He was also a zero as an organization man. And whether you like it or not, big, complex organizations run things today. You take the oath of office and, buddy, it's your organization whether you like it or not. I've learned that running my organization. I wonder if Doug learned that.
It would have been nice if Filion had filled in some of the goings on behind doors with city councillors with the personalities who clashed with Ford. He does a pretty good job on the personalities within Ford's team.
Contrary to how the Fords behaved in office, you can be but don't need to be a prick to be an effective politician any more than you need to be a prick to be a good businessman. (Some of the greatest businessmen and politicians, however, were undeniably pricks.) It helps to be sharp, and it helps to be a bit ruthless when you need to be.
There is another lesson in this book for all of us: Ford Nation isn't going away. It's just waiting for the next demagogue to spring forth.
In this book, John Filion doesn't come to praise Caesar. He comes to bury Caesar. There is some attempt to journalistic objectivity here, but let's face it: Rob Ford was his opponent on Toronto City Council. It was fun for this reader to see how one opponent saw him, but a little unsatisfying.
I have read some great biographies of businessmen and politicians including Lyndon Johnson, John Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Rothchilds, Andrew Carnegie,
Edmund Burke to name but a few.
Filion fills in some great pieces of the story beyond the news reports. We are still waiting for an account of the Fords with perspective and context. It's a great story and far from over.
Filion's premise is that the mayoralty was a bridge too far for Rob Ford. I would add that anything was possible for Rob Ford, except adjusting to reality.
For me the point of departure are the Ford brothers, what we have in common and what makes them different.
For example, like Rob Ford I too fell in love with football as a youth. But it ended for me, I think, about the time puberty hit. With Rob Ford the passion never died.
Like Doug Ford, I run an independent business. In my case, I started mine from scratch. Doug took over his Dad's business. Fair enough. But to call on that experience as authority for slamming government is, I think, simplistic.
But unlike both of these dudes, I've actually worked in government. Municipal. Provincial. Federal. Five different agencies at last count. So when these guys start to blather on about government waste, I had a front row seat. Yes, government wastes money. I've seen it. And pledging to reduce waste in government is an honourable pursuit. But business also wastes resources. I've seen that, too, in my own business and in other people's businesses, too.
Waste is inevitable when nothing is a given. You make mistakes, you learn by your mistakes (sometimes). Think Target Canada. Think about the waste when the managers of Enron blew up the company by cheating and getting caught. Or Global Crossing. Or Worldcom. It happens in smaller much less dramatic ways too, unpublicized.
In government, ordinary people make laws and ask other ordinary people to carry them out, but there is rarely a blueprint on how to get things right. It takes time. And times change. Things that worked well once are not necessarily the right thing for later on. And indeed sometimes the laws end up being a waste of everybody's time.
In the case of Canadian governments, WE MADE THOSE LAWS. All politicians, left and right, claim to be reformers of some sort. For the Fords to waltz into municipal government and claim that they were going to change things...yeah, that made them typical politicians. Nothing new. There are a lot of laws in place the day they walked in the door. Already. You gonna change the laws? Okay. But you gonna be here until the cows come home, buddy, cause THERE'S A WHOLE MESS OF LAWS!!!!
And you don't start out by breaking the law.
Rob Ford didn't appreciate that when he became a councillor and mayor he was sworn to uphold those laws. That is a big responsibility. First uphold, later fix.
Rob Ford also didn't appreciate how many judgements he would be called upon to make, and how much information would crowd his life as mayor. For a person of his average intelligence, it must have been crushing.
Unlike the Fords, I have also been a reporter for a daily newspaper, so I can see things from the other side when the Fords claim that the Toronto Star or whomever has it in for them. In this very period while the media are raking Rob Ford over the coals the media are fighting for their livelihood, too. Online news is eating their lunch. Are the media in a frenzy? You bet! HuffPo, Gawker, The Daily Beast, BuzzFeed, and all those other online services are destroying the press.
How the "right" took the Fords lead in trying dismantle municipal programs is worth a better discussion than is offered in this book. I didn't notice any big improvements in my commercial taxes while they were in office. Nor did I see any big improvements to inequities in the municipal tax system, but this may be rooted in provincial laws more so than municipal. This is one part of the story that isn't finished.
The Ford brothers are strange, and their family stranger yet but not so strange that one can't see the hand of an alcoholic father behind the bullying, the bragging, and the holier-than-thou attitude. Nowhere in the book does Filion say it but it is certainly there between the lines.
What else could explain the father's inability to show affection to his children? Maybe he was just a quiet kind of guy. Not. He was loud. He bragged about how poor he was as a youth and was able to build a successful company. And he seems to have complained an awful lot about government employees making a living for doing nothing.
My father also grew up in the Depression. He was born in 1919. Ford's father, by comparison, was born in 1933 and largely missed the Depression as a youngster. My father didn't swear. He didn't drink. He certainly never bullied people. He was a very successful businessman as well. Like Ford Sr. he also ran for public office.
But I never heard him bitch and moan about how easy everybody else had it in comparison. My dad greased cars in his uncle's garage. He hawked hotdogs at the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball games, and he sold insurance door-to-door.
Like Ford Sr. he also got help from others in the early days of his business but he never tried to hide it.
I think Ford Sr. had more going on in his life. Things we don't hear about, not in this book.
And these are some of the things I would have liked to know which helped Rob Ford become obese, become an alcoholic, druggy, a wife-beater, and from what I tell, a weird football coach.
The bigotry, the lying, the substance abuse, the bad language, the resentment, and above all the anger. While this book does a good job bringing these aspects of Rob Ford's personality to the forefront, it does not fill in the whys. Neither Rob nor Doug Ford had much reason to be angry with anybody before they got into politics.
Except maybe their sister's lousy choice of husbands.
Another weakness in this book are the 10 missing years between when Rob left Carelton University in 1990 -- he quit university after one year, we are told, ostensibly because he didn't make the football team -- and when he was first elected to office. Supposedly he worked at his father's business with Doug. He was a salesman. Was he a good salesman? Did he work hard? What kind of an organization was his company Deco like to work for in those days? How does somebody as angry and bitter as Doug build a big company? In this book we simply don't find out.
From the absence of any management skills in government, we can assume that Rob never learned a day of management skills in his life, unless you count running a high school football team management experience. hey, it could be. Another reason to ask yourself why Rob Ford wanted to be Mayor of Toronto, easily one of the weakest executive jobs in Canada.
Mayor Rob leaned on city employees to do his personal tasks. He drank alcohol far beyond moderation in his office and drove while intoxicated. He bullied and used offensive language to his staff. Whether he liked to believe it or not, he was a corrupt politician, breaking laws and the morays of the office he held. Did he take large sums from the public treasury? I doubt it.
He was also a zero as an organization man. And whether you like it or not, big, complex organizations run things today. You take the oath of office and, buddy, it's your organization whether you like it or not. I've learned that running my organization. I wonder if Doug learned that.
It would have been nice if Filion had filled in some of the goings on behind doors with city councillors with the personalities who clashed with Ford. He does a pretty good job on the personalities within Ford's team.
Contrary to how the Fords behaved in office, you can be but don't need to be a prick to be an effective politician any more than you need to be a prick to be a good businessman. (Some of the greatest businessmen and politicians, however, were undeniably pricks.) It helps to be sharp, and it helps to be a bit ruthless when you need to be.
There is another lesson in this book for all of us: Ford Nation isn't going away. It's just waiting for the next demagogue to spring forth.
In this book, John Filion doesn't come to praise Caesar. He comes to bury Caesar. There is some attempt to journalistic objectivity here, but let's face it: Rob Ford was his opponent on Toronto City Council. It was fun for this reader to see how one opponent saw him, but a little unsatisfying.
I have read some great biographies of businessmen and politicians including Lyndon Johnson, John Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Rothchilds, Andrew Carnegie,
Edmund Burke to name but a few.
Filion fills in some great pieces of the story beyond the news reports. We are still waiting for an account of the Fords with perspective and context. It's a great story and far from over.
March 19, 2023
After reading Crazy Town by Robin Doolittle, I was curious to read more perspectives on the Rob Ford mayoralty. While Doolittle focuses on the Toronto Star's efforts to report on the unravelling of Ford as a person and as a public figure, Filion focuses on events at City Hall (he was a city councillor at the same time who briefly achieved a tenuous rapport with Ford through shared participation in a football pool) and the disfunction in the mayor's office. The chapters are thematic, focusing on different issues from addiction to conflict of interest. There are some interesting interviews and a chilling observation that few people in Etobicoke are willing to critique the Ford family in person or share everything that they know. A good companion volume to Crazy Town.
December 3, 2015
Rob Ford was a councillor of Etobicoke from 2000 to 2010 and mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. He appealed to many because of his promises to save taxpayer and "stop the gravy train" and "Ford Nation" formed. When Rob was mayor, his brother, Doug, was councillor of Etobicoke. Together they were a united front. I've never been a fan of either of the Fords ... I think they are lying arrogant bullies.
As Rob's alcohol and drug addictions took hold of him, having him as our mayor became an embarrassment to our city (it is North America’s fourth largest city and Canada’s sixth largest government) and he became a laughingstock around the world.
Rob spent less and less time at City Hall and more time on the missing list. He started showing up at events hammered and stoned. There were rumours that he was hanging out with drug dealers and murderers. When it was reported that there was a video of Ford doing coke, he denied its existence and proclaimed that he didn't do drugs. It was only when he was backed up against a wall that he admitted the truth ... that seemed to be the way he dealt with everything. Deny deny deny until proof comes out to show he was lying.
Eventually because he couldn't be kicked out of the office, the councillors voted to strip him of his powers so for his last year he was our mayor in name only. When yet another video surfaced of him in less-than-stellar behaviour, he said he was heading to rehab (he was only there for about a month). He vowed to become elected again as mayor in the 2014 election but was forced to quit because it was discovered he had cancer and he needed to have it treated. Instead he ran for his former position as councillor and won.
This book is written by Rob's fellow councillor, John Filion who spent 15 years working with him. Filion interviewed more than 75 people (including Rob and Doug) to get the story on what Rob makes Rob who he is today. He starts by telling about their parents, Doug Sr. and Diane, who seem to have only cared about prestige and it didn't sound like they gave their four children (Rob and Doug are the third and fourth children) praise or love. Rob is dysfunctionally always trying to make his father proud, even though the man's been dead for many years. Rob liked the idea of being mayor but didn't actually enjoy doing the work. He has a short attention span and no filters.
This book gave a good insight on Rob Ford and his family. I enjoyed it ... it's an interesting read, especially for people living in Toronto.
Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2015/12...
As Rob's alcohol and drug addictions took hold of him, having him as our mayor became an embarrassment to our city (it is North America’s fourth largest city and Canada’s sixth largest government) and he became a laughingstock around the world.
Rob spent less and less time at City Hall and more time on the missing list. He started showing up at events hammered and stoned. There were rumours that he was hanging out with drug dealers and murderers. When it was reported that there was a video of Ford doing coke, he denied its existence and proclaimed that he didn't do drugs. It was only when he was backed up against a wall that he admitted the truth ... that seemed to be the way he dealt with everything. Deny deny deny until proof comes out to show he was lying.
Eventually because he couldn't be kicked out of the office, the councillors voted to strip him of his powers so for his last year he was our mayor in name only. When yet another video surfaced of him in less-than-stellar behaviour, he said he was heading to rehab (he was only there for about a month). He vowed to become elected again as mayor in the 2014 election but was forced to quit because it was discovered he had cancer and he needed to have it treated. Instead he ran for his former position as councillor and won.
This book is written by Rob's fellow councillor, John Filion who spent 15 years working with him. Filion interviewed more than 75 people (including Rob and Doug) to get the story on what Rob makes Rob who he is today. He starts by telling about their parents, Doug Sr. and Diane, who seem to have only cared about prestige and it didn't sound like they gave their four children (Rob and Doug are the third and fourth children) praise or love. Rob is dysfunctionally always trying to make his father proud, even though the man's been dead for many years. Rob liked the idea of being mayor but didn't actually enjoy doing the work. He has a short attention span and no filters.
This book gave a good insight on Rob Ford and his family. I enjoyed it ... it's an interesting read, especially for people living in Toronto.
Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2015/12...
December 30, 2016
As I write this, Renata Ford, Rob Ford's widow has just been charged with impaired driving in Etobicoke. So the neverending circus that is the Ford family goes on. This is a rather sad and very disturbing book about the life and times of the maelstrom that was Rob Ford written by John Filion,a Toronto councillor who sat next to Ford in the years before he became mayor and who helped to oust him from that job because of his crack videos and rampant unacceptable behaviour. What makes this story so engrossing is the detail the author goes into about the dysfunctional family that made Rob the addict and tortured soul that he was. I have to confess that despite everything, I have always had a soft spot for Ford and when you read this you really get the idea that his character was damaged by an eccentric demanding father, a mother soaked in denial and two older siblings who give new meaning to the words white trash gangstas. Indeed one of the most chilling aspects of this story is the fear the Fords engendered in Etobicoke, so much so that ever years later, many Ford associates and neighbours refused to talk to the author about the bad bevaviour they had witnessed for many years. For example, Rob's older sister Kathy saw the father of one of her children murdered by the father of another. No wonder Rob was screwed up. In fact Filion notes that because he was ignored and bullied by his family Ford grew up to be needy and damaged. Only brother Doug comes off a fairly sane though he too swallowed the family Koolaid and refused to impart any insights into why things turned out the way they did for Ford and more importantly why nobody could or would help him.
February 13, 2016
This was a really interesting read. John Filion did a great job of gathering up a lot of intriguing, illuminating episodes to "try" and explain one of the more puzzling personalities in the history of Toronto politics.
I'm not entirely sure I liked the way the book was crafted-- there was a general chronological thrust to the story-telling, but for the most part the book sets up as a series of curious incidents well told. The clear strength of the book is the extent of the interviewee list, and the stories they had to tell -- and the way Filion let them tell it. All in all, this book has done an excellent job in trying to explain the circus that was a mayor's office in those time.
It's definitely well-worth the read if you were a witness to the Rob Ford era, and curious about how (and perhaps more interestingly, why?) much of it went on.
I'm not entirely sure I liked the way the book was crafted-- there was a general chronological thrust to the story-telling, but for the most part the book sets up as a series of curious incidents well told. The clear strength of the book is the extent of the interviewee list, and the stories they had to tell -- and the way Filion let them tell it. All in all, this book has done an excellent job in trying to explain the circus that was a mayor's office in those time.
It's definitely well-worth the read if you were a witness to the Rob Ford era, and curious about how (and perhaps more interestingly, why?) much of it went on.
January 18, 2016
I loved this book! It is an insightful look into how Rob Ford became Mayor and Toronto's overwhelming reaction to him. There are plenty of interesting details and with an in depth look into the man himself that I hadn't seen elsewhere.
February 3, 2016
This is a somewhat sympathic view of the life and times of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and to some extent his family. I came away feeling he's more to be pitied than censured and I wish him success in his recovery.
December 29, 2015
I liked it. I only knew the Rob ford I would see on the news. This book gives you a little of both sides. Good read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews