In a 16-minute, combative interview with CBC Metro Morning’s Matt Galloway on Friday, Doug Ford (open Doug Ford's poilcard) made nine untrue and mostly untrue statements.

1. Tory’s salary

Ford claim: “John Tory’s first vote when he was an MPP was to give himself a $22,000 pay hike.”

Reality: Tory did endorse a pay hike, but it wasn't his first vote. He was elected as MPP of Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey in a byelection in 2005. The pay raise vote did not occur until December 2006. There were many votes in between. The idea was not Tory’s alone, but was agreed upon by all parties, including the governing Liberals, until there was a split amongst NDP MPPs.

2. Attendance record

Ford claim: Galloway asked Ford why he wanted the mayor’s job, pointing to the 53 per cent of council votes Ford missed in 2014 alone.

He said: “You know that’s not true because CBC was watching me every single day. Every person in the city saw me 18 hours a day,” Ford said. “No one worked harder and put more hours in than Rob and I did.”

Later Ford said: “You’re being disingenuous with the listeners . . . I had one of the best attendance records, for showing up, being there. I was out lobbying votes.”

Reality: Ford did miss 53 per cent of votes in 2014. He missed 30 per cent of all votes over four years, making him third-worst on council.

3. First budget

Ford claim: “The fiscal foundation of the ship of this city was in a complete mess when I got down there. There were $774 million of pressure going into the year —”

Galloway: “And a surplus.”

Ford: “No, Matt, you don’t understand the budget.”

Reality: There was $706 million “opening pressure” on the new council. That was the gap council needed to find a way to fill by the end of the budget process, not a deficit — because David Miller’s previous administration also left them with a large surplus of $367 million. Ford’s administration used that money to balance the 2011 budget.

The “pressure” of $774 million was for the Fords’ second budget, in 2012.

4. Council records

Ford claim: “I’ve been the vice-chair of the budget for four years, longer than any serving councillor in the city.”

Reality: Ford was the vice-chair of the budget committee for four years, but he’s not the only sitting councillor with that amount of budget committee experience. Councillor Shelley Carroll (open Shelley Carroll's poilcard) was budget chair under Miller from 2006 to 2010.

5. Tax increases

Ford claim: “In 2013, we ended up with a $248 million surplus. We delivered a 0 per cent tax increase the first year. Our average is one and three quarter per cent.”

Reality: Ford is being misleading about the average tax increase. While there was a tax freeze in the first year of council, there has actually been an average increase of 1.8 per cent over four years when you include a frozen tax rate in 2011, a 2.5 per cent hike in 2012, a 2 per cent hike in 2013 and a 2.7 per cent hike in 2014. The Fords argue that the 2014 budget doesn't count because the mayor's powers had been stripped by council by the time it was approved, but it was being developed before that, and there is no indication it changed afterward.

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6. Ford promises

Ford claim: Ford said his brother’s administration passed 98 per cent of their promises at council. He also claimed all of the budgets were passed with a “vast majority of the vote.”

Reality: The Fords did not come close to fulfilling almost all of their promises. There are multiple major promises they did not fulfill, including a Sheppard subway extension, outsourcing garbage collection east of Yonge St., and eliminating the land transfer tax. They were also defeated on numerous smaller proposals.

While it is true that Ford-era budgets have passed with large majorities at the end of the budget process, that doesn’t mean the budgets have sailed through: before those easy final votes, there are various close votes on specific budget motions. In 2012, council rejected $20 million in Ford-proposed cuts.

And in 2013, Rob Ford (open Rob Ford's poilcard) essentially voted against his own budget by voting for a motion that proposed a tax freeze rather than the 2 per cent hike his executive committee had approved. If a freeze had gone through, the budget would have had to be rewritten.

7. Scarborough subway

Ford claim: “How did we get the federal government, the provincial government and all the councillors on side to keep our promise to build a subway to Scarborough?”

Reality: The Scarborough subway has not yet been built, nor have studies been completed. It remains a key issue in this election, with Tory and Ford saying they’d build it and Chow saying she would revert back to the previous plan of building an LRT. Moreover, most of the council consensus-building and work with the provincial government was done by TTC chair Karen Stintz (open Karen Stintz's poilcard) and other councillors.

8. Griffin Centre

Ford claim: Ford said no autistic children were living at Griffin Centre, a group home that Ford previously said was “ruining the community.” Ford said police were there “every day.”

Reality: The Etobicoke home does serve teens with autism. Police records show officers have been called to the home, but not every day. Between March 12 and May 21 of this year, police attended 11 times. Of those, only seven calls were clearly related to disturbances at the home.

9. Land transfer tax

Ford claim: Ford says he can cut costs to fill the budget hole left by his plan to cut the land transfer tax by 60 per cent over four years. He says $97 million will be saved outsourcing garbage east of Yonge St. and $50 million to $60 million through efficiencies identified by a KPMG report.

Reality: The city brought in $357 million from the land transfer tax in 2013. With his math, there would still be a total budget shortfall of at least $50 million. The $97 million he says would be saved by outsourcing garbage collection appears to be an estimate of savings over four years, not all at once — and even this estimate has not been publicly corroborated by city officials.

With files from Robert Benzie

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