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“Anything else?” the mayor followed up. Then he climbed into a snow-clearing vehicle and joked that the media should stand in front.

At city hall, Councillor Ford seemed to suggest he believes a vast conspiracy exists among the media, unnamed opponents and the police chief to drive Mayor Ford out of office.

“Until the media stops its [Soviet] Stalin-era Pravda journalism. And for the folks that don’t know Pravda journalism, back in the day of Stalin [it tried] to coerce the people to get the people to believe in what they’re doing.”

He went on: “You guys want to beat this to death. I’ll tell you what I hear on the street: people are getting sick and tired of listening to the media. They don’t want to listen to this anymore… The mayor has not been charged. He wasn’t on the wiretaps,” he said. (The mayor’s voice is not on the wiretaps but he was mentioned repeatedly.) “Isn’t it amazing how this timing took place? In my opinion, folks, this is a clear, clear agenda, [a] very well-organized agenda from some of our competitors,” he said. “I wasn’t the one who decided to release some of the documents and then time it a little longer, release a little more. What are they going to release next?”

Councillor Ford said he and the mayor plan to attend the funeral for a police officer on Monday, noting that they differentiate between front-line police and Chief Bill Blair, whom he accused of having an agenda “to get rid of the mayor.”

Earlier, at a public works yard on Eastern Avenue, Mayor Ford reminded residents to be patient when the city gets snow dumped on it next.