Former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson has publicly accused Mayor Rob Ford of touching her inappropriately and making a suggestive remark to her at a party held by a Jewish political group She was photographed in the Toronto Star newsroom during a day of interviews.
Former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson has publicly accused Mayor Rob Ford of touching her inappropriately and making a suggestive remark to her at a party held by a Jewish political group She was photographed in the Toronto Star newsroom during a day of interviews.
“The negative is just as good as the positive,” Sarah Thomson declares as she pulls up her chair to a computer, readying herself to face a barrage of online questions during a live website chat.
Attention, good and bad, has been coming in droves all morning. She has already conducted several telephone and in-person interviews, been grilled on NewsTalk 1010, and scrummed with a horde of reporters outside of City Hall. It is not yet noon.
It was the first time many had seen the now dreadlocked 45-year-old publisher of the Women’s Post, and mother of two young sons, in such a glaring spotlight since her two failed political campaigns.
In 2010, she was the sole female Toronto mayoral contender in the top tier of hopefuls. After attracting praise for her enthusiasm and criticism for her lack of experience, she bowed out in what she claimed was an effort to thwart a Ford victory. She threw her support behind George Smitherman.
She went chasing political office again one year later in Trinity-Spadina with the provincial Liberals, a contest she lost to incumbent New Democrat Rosario Marchese.
Her political ambition played no small part in much of the negative reception she received Friday (International Women’s Day, as it happens); some speculated she was using the allegations as a publicity stunt, a way to smear a political rival.
Greg Sorbara, the former provincial Liberal campaign co-chair who helped Thomson get the party’s nomination in Trinity-Spadina, came to her defence Friday, saying it is simply not in her nature to falsely smear Ford’s name.
It is also not like her to keep quiet. Thomson talks — without apology or self-censorship (“Can I say ‘ass’?” she asked a videographer Friday, after already saying the word at least a dozen times).
“To me, it doesn’t sound like something she would just make up in order to get a little ink,” Sorbara said. “Sarah was a very strong candidate, a very aggressive candidate, one who always wanted to speak her mind, and did.”
That may help explain how she worked her way through several campaign managers during the 2011 election. Thomson, Sorbara said, had “trouble understanding” that provincial politics is a team sport, not the individual exercise of municipal politics that she was accustomed to.
“I do what I say and say what I think — the latter often gets me into trouble,” Thomson states in her Twitter profile. On Jan. 1 she tweeted that she prays “Toronto Mayor Rob Ford learns humility and doesn’t make a total ass of himself again this year.”
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Thomson says she has made a renewed dedication to authenticity since the political campaigns, including rejigging her look.
The polished, professional style she was sporting has been replaced with something more casual: jeans, clunky winter boots and those waist-length dreadlocks — the latter being a way to “get back to my roots,” since she sported the hairstyle when she was in her 20s.
“I got polished over when I ran for mayor. And people said, ‘You’re not as authentic as you are one-on-one.’ And it was because they redid me.”
She talked to “a really good pro” who advised her that if she wants to run for politics again, she needs her authenticity.
Thomson vehemently denied that she was using the alleged interaction with Ford for political gain. If anything, she said, the move could hurt her.
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“If it was during an election, yes, I would agree that they have grounds. But we’re not in an election, there’s a long time to go before the next election.”
Instead, after considering “sweeping it under the rug,” Thomson opted to speak her mind.
“It’s not easy, the stuff that I’ve been through. I’ve been accused of grandstanding, and all this junk, and that will happen, but you have to be strong and stand up to it. The right thing to do is address it.”
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