Yesterday was not a good day for Doug Ford.

Following last night’s mayoral debate on CTV, the mayoral candidate made two equally ill-advised comments.

First, when asked how he would handle the situation unfolding in Ottawa, he said:

“I understand there are over 90 people on this watch list that the RCMP have been watching. If you’re asking me, I’d be rounding up all 90 of them and finding out, because they came from the same cell. This is unacceptable. We can’t tolerate it in this city. I wouldn’t tolerate it and I’d make sure we rounded up every one of these characters.”

He added, “You have to take a hard line. You can’t sit down and be soft with these people. … We don’t want people like this in our country, in our city.”

And as if that wasn’t enough, he was then heard referring to Toronto Star reporter Jennifer Pagliaro as a “little bitch“.

Joanne MacDonald, the vice-president of CTV News, told the Toronto Star that one of her staff heard Doug Ford making the remark. “I can confirm that a CTV producer heard this,” she said.

Ford later released a written statement, saying, “The fact is, I had a private conversation with two of my staff members as I was walking out of the debate, and that private conversation was completely unrelated to anyone in the room.”

Doug Ford, guys! [via Globe and Mail and Toronto Star]

Image via Flickr user Andrew Louis.
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Igor Bonifacic is the managing editor of Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter.