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Day 6

Rob Ford's longest serving staffer - Tom Beyer - remembers his boss

Tom Beyer was Rob Ford's receptionist, and witnessed it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. He speaks to Brent about the late politician.
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Tom Beyer and Rob Ford pose for a picture in the earlier days of Ford's tenure as Toronto mayor (Courtesy Tom Beyer)
Day 69:18Rob Ford's longest serving staffer - Tom Beyer - remembers his boss

"I was amazed by him. Frankly, I'd never seen a councillor like him. Rob blew me away."

That's how Tom Beyer describes meeting Rob Ford more than a decade ago. Beyer would go on to encourage Ford to run for mayor -- and become his longest serving employee.

On Monday, Rob Ford will lie in repose at Toronto's city hall. The controversial former mayor died this week. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2014.

When Beyer, who served as Ford's receptionist, started working with the then-councillor, he was shocked by how seriously Ford took his constituents' needs. If someone complained their garbage hadn't been picked up, Ford would personally respond, he says. "He would go, physically, and pick up the garbage and throw it in the back of his truck."

A memorial at Douglas B Ford Park in Etobicoke in memory of the former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

When John Tory dropped out of the Toronto mayoralty race in 2010, Beyer told Ford, "Now's your chance." So, Ford took it, and won.

But Rob Ford the mayor became a different man once he donned the chain of office.

"I think it was overwhelming to him. I don't think he really realized how big a piece of the pie that was. It was a huge jump from being a councillor to being mayor," Beyer recalls. "I saw a side of him that I've never really seen."  According to Beyer, Ford was often hard on staff where previously he'd been easygoing.

When it became clear Ford had a problem with drugs and alcohol, Beyer worked hard, along with other staff, to get him help. Beyer resents the notion that Ford's staff "enabled" him as some press reports claimed.

"When he was in the throes of addiction, we tried desperately to help him. I looked at him as a friend."

Beyer left Ford's office shortly before the former Mayor went into rehab. "It broke my heart. There was so much potential in this man." But the hardest part was when he learned that Ford lied about using crack cocaine, as a well-circulated video suggested and Ford later admitted. He believed Ford at the time. "We'd been lying to the whole city."

Beyer says the personal side of Rob Ford was different than his public persona, especially as he struggled  with addiction. "The Rob Ford I knew, wasn't homophobic, wasn't racist. There was a lot of good in this man."

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