TORONTO

From subways, subways, subways to stadiums, stadiums, stadiums.

Fresh from his trip out west, Mayor Rob Ford said Tuesday that Toronto needs a football stadium.

Ford took in CFL games in Winnipeg and Regina during his weekend vacation and came back impressed. While watching the Toronto Argonauts trounce the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the mayor says he was amazed by the atmosphere inside the Bombers’ Investors Group Field.

“That’s what you call football,” Ford said during a press conference.

“There is 35,000 fans dedicated to their team. I’m not saying we’re not. We need a football stadium in the city, bad.”

The avid Argos fan said he’s “doing everything possible” to get a “made-for-football” stadium in Toronto, including trying to sit down with the Argo owners.

As for where the stadium would go, Ford floated a variety of locations.

“Where can we build it? Where can we put a 35,000-seat stadium? We can either work on U of T, we can either work with (BMO Field). Maybe at Downsview? Maybe at Woodbine?” Ford told reporters. “We need a football stadium in this city … especially after winning the Grey Cup.”

Although news reports said Ford was heckled by some fans at the Bombers game, Ford had nothing but nice things to say about the fans he met.

“The people in Winnipeg were very, very gracious and polite and the people of Regina were the same,” Ford said. “Had a great time.”

Public Works chairman Denzil Minnan-Wong said he’d love to have a new football stadium but it’s not “on the top of the priority list.”

“I don’t think it is a priority right now,” Minnan-Wong said. “There are things that we need to focus on that are more significant — transit, flooding problems — those are two things that come to mind.

“While it would be nice to have a new stadium, I think we actually got to keep our eye on the ball.”

Councillor Mike Layton said Toronto has a football stadium already.

“The Argos play at SkyDome,” Layton said.

“We have one that went three times over budget and that we then sold for next to nothing. Do we really want to try this again?”

Ford was also impressed by Winnipeg City Hall.

“The thing I liked about it, they only had, I think, 16 councillors down there and a little, small council chamber,” he said.

The mayor lost a fight to cut Toronto council in half last week.

Winnipeg council includes 15 councillors plus the mayor compared to Toronto’s 44 councillors plus the mayor. But the two cities are drastically different sizes — Winnipeg has a population of 663,617 people while Toronto has a population of 2.6 million people.