Mayor Ford Refused Advice to Declare Emergency during Ice Storm

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Official documents have confirmed that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford formally refused appeals from fellow city officials to declare a state of emergency despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of residents were stranded without power after a brutal pre-Christmas ice storm.

An email authored by deputy city manager, John Livey, was leaked to the press on Friday, in which he straightforwardly recommends the mayor to call a state of emergency. The email narrates that “we are getting ready to ask the mayor to declare this an emergency largely because it will assist the staff at the province to make resources available to us, crews, generators, facilities for warming centres.” The email was sent on Dec. 22, at 5:02 p.m., which is less than 24 hours after the storm impacted electricity to a substantial number of Toronto Hydro customers. However, Mayor Ford chose to ignore the recommendation, as he replied in response that there was “no reason” to call the ice storm an emergency.

However, the mayor did enjoy some support from the council on that decision. Councilor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who is also the chair of the public works committee, mentioned in a statement issued on Dec. 23, that “I don’t think declaring a state of emergency is going to make the electricity go on any quicker, or our furnaces turn on any faster.” Councillor for St. Paul’s West, Joe Mihevc, alleged that the decision of  not declaring an emergency is “regrettable,” since “we could’ve acted more quickly calling an emergency right off the bat.”