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After making a surprise policy announcement Wednesday morning that he was against the phasing out of door-to-door mail delivery, Rob Ford did his own version of return to sender this afternoon at a meeting of Canada’s key city mayors.

Ford left his first ever Big City Mayors’ Caucus in Ottawa five hours early to meet up with a friend of his at a local brew pub, saying he was done for the day. But his departure halfway through the event instantly set off a firestorm, with Montreal’s mayor slamming Ford for turning the caucus into a “circus.”

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The criticism seemingly reached the Clocktower Brew Pub where Ford was meeting a friend and the Toronto mayor hurriedly returned to the caucus meeting prior to a meeting with the federal minister responsible for housing — the very area the mayor claimed was one of his three priorities.

“He has the right to be there but I don’t care about him,” Montreal mayor Denis Coderre said. “It’s a caucus not a circus. I want to talk about issues and you know, we didn’t talk to him, I didn’t shake his hand, I didn’t look at him.”