Update | A sorry mess in Toronto as mayor Rob Ford admits he smoked crack cocaine
Rob Ford draws ridicule as he tries to cling to mayor's job after finally admitting crack cocaine use; step aside, even allies urge
For six months, Toronto's unashamedly populist Mayor Rob Ford has derided reports that he featured in a cellphone video smoking crack cocaine, while somehow managing to avoid directly addressing the central accusation.
How, he said, could he comment on a video that he had not seen "or does not exist"?
My first reaction was ‘wow’. He’s lost the moral authority to lead
On Tuesday, Ford stunned his supporters by admitting for the first time that, yes, he smoked crack "probably a year ago" when he was in a "drunken stupor". Later in the day, he sweated and stammered his way through a surreal press conference at which he refused to resign, despite immense pressure to step aside as leader of Canada's largest city.
Ford, looking haggard and intensely uncomfortable, said he loves his job and "for the sake of the taxpayers, we must get back to work immediately".
"God bless the people of Toronto," he added in a final attempt at a flourish that was greeted with outright laughter by some reporters as Ford fled the room without taking questions.
The mayor's admission was forced after police last week said they had obtained a copy of the video in the course of a drug investigation against a friend of Ford's. The file had been deleted from a hard drive, but police computer experts recovered the data.
"Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine," Ford told stunned reporters outside his office on Tuesday morning. "There have been times when I've been in a drunken stupor. That's why I want to see the tape. I want everyone in the city to see this tape. I don't even recall there being a tape or video. I want to see the state that I was in."