Letters and Editorials 4342 Views by Pauline

Rob Ford: Gawker still to decide where to donate







Toronto City Hall has been hitting headlines lately with life inside becoming more chaotic each day. It’s becoming worse in performance than its Montreal counterpart and still more dramatic than Cirque du Soleil. It has been almost four weeks since the emergence of allegations of an existing crack video involving Mayor Rob Ford. A report was made by two news organization reporters who had come across a video recording of Mayor Ford smoking what appeared to be a crack pipe.

As the legend goes, the video remained a mystery to everyone else and was put in the market for anyone who would come up with six figures in exchange for it. At that time no organization or anyone from the general public was willing to pay such an amount. U.S. gossip site Gawker decided to challenge the move by launching a campaign through website Indiegogo to collect public donations of $200,000. Though there was so much controversy about the campaign Gawker was successful in raising the amount but the hard work was all in vain because when it was time to pay for the video, the source was nowhere to be found.

The big question now is not whether the alleged video existed in the first place but where would Gawker take the donations of $201,254 which was given by more than 8,300 donors. The actual amount left is around $184,689.81 after paying a few charges of $16,564.19 to both Indiegogo and PayPal. When asked to comment on the matter, Danae Ringelmann the co-founder of Indigogo showed no concern and only talked about ethics of fundraising found on their website instead. The best thing to happen to the money maybe is to be donated to an addiction foundation since it did not fall in the hands of drug dealers in exchange for the video. John Cook Gawker editor insisted on the money being donated to a Canadian charity on Monday as promised by the site. He also said more suggestions were open from readers.

“We still hope the alleged copies of the video exist and anyone who come into possession of a copy and would like money in exchange should come forward,” Cook wrote.

“We should prepare for the possibility of not coming into possession of the video but that does not mean we are closing shop on the Crackstarter yet”

It’s clear that those in possession of the video will not collect the money and the amount will go to charity. Here are a few possible candidates that could receive a total amount of $184,689.81 “Crackstarter” donation.

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is one candidate likely to receive the money but a spokesman from the organization told Globe and mail that if the offer were to be made to them, the board have to debate whether to accept or not. Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force, Legal Aid Ontario and Insite are also on the list of candidates that are more likely to be given the money. The Salvation Army a support group led by Christian church which helps the poor would not think twice about accepting the money if the offer were to be made to them. This is according to reports by Globe.

Bob Rae is resigning and says he is not running to be Toronto mayor.


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