Mayor Rob Ford took to talk radio Thursday morning to lambaste council for banning plastic shopping bags — and, unprompted, blamed the city's residents for the unexpected decision.

“It’s the people’s fault,” Ford told AM640’s John Oakley. “Honestly, sometimes I get so frustrated because the people are just sitting back listening. They don’t pick up the phone, they don’t go down to City Hall, they don’t ask questions, they just — it’s frustrating. I want people to get engaged in municipal politics to find out who their councillor is and know how they vote.”

“If there was a couple hundred thousand people down in Nathan Phillips Square saying they want plastic bags back, yes, then the councillors will listen,” Ford said. “But if people don’t, like I said, take action and don’t get in the councillors’ faces, it’s not going to happen. It’s up to the taxpayers. They have to be more engaged and they’re just not. It’s frustrating when stuff like this happens.”

Moved to action by residents' phone calls, Ford asked council Wednesday to scrap the bylaw that forced retailers to charge five cents for plastic shopping bags. Council did so, but it also voted 24-20 to scrap the bags entirely as of Jan. 1.

Stores will then have to give out paper bags, offer reusable cloth bags for sale, or go bag-free.

“This is ludicrous. It’s the dumbest thing council has done, and council’s done some dumb things, let me tell you,” Ford told Oakley.

The vote would not have come about had Ford not pushed the issue to council. On Oakley’s show, Ford accepted no responsibility. He referred to the councillors who voted for the ban as “NDPers” and “very far left,” though they included centrists and right-leaning allies David Shiner, Gary Crawford, and Peter Milczyn.

As he did after council rejected his transit vision, Ford called for the defeat of council opponents: “The campaign’s already started for the next election. We have to get rid of some of these councillors.” And he suggested he might seek changes to the City of Toronto Act to give himself more power.

In February, when Councillor Doug Ford called for an American-style “strong mayor system” in which the mayor would have a veto over council votes, Rob Ford quickly shot down the idea, saying he was happy with the power he has and joking that his brother “might be spending too much time in Chicago.”

On Thursday, he sounded a different note.

“I only have one vote on council. On issues like this, I think the mayor should have a little more power than one vote. I do represent 3 million people compared to some councillors that represent 60,000. We have to look at changing the act, and then I’d have to see whether I agree with it, because there’s pros and cons,” he said.

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