The joke is over and it is time for Toronto to elect a different mayor, American filmmaker Michael Moore said Sunday.

“It’s funny for a while,” Moore told the Toronto Sun about Rob Ford’s “train wreck” tenure as the mayor. “And then it wasn’t funny. And now it’s really NOT funny! Okay, we got the joke. Now it’s got to be over!”

Asked if he would ever vote for Ford himself, if he lived in Toronto, Moore said bluntly: “Oh God, no! No!”

The Michigan-born Moore enthusiastically researches Canadian politics and society for his own interest and for his documentaries, among them Bowling for Columbine and Sicko. He feels a deep kinship with the City of Toronto and talked about Ford before an interview in Toronto about TIFF's 25th anniversary screening of his 1989 documentary, Roger & Me. That film was launched at the festival and its success helped to make his career.

The Ford case shows one of the differences between the U.S. and Canada, Moore said. If a major American city had a mayor with Ford’s disgraceful track record of alcohol and drug abuse — along with outbursts of homophobia and other issues — there would be a different reaction. “In America, people would get all harrumphed about it,” Moore said.

“It’s not that people here are not embarrassed, but I think a lot of people here love the comedy. It’s a rebellious thing to have a mayor who is that: He is a complete train wreck.”

But Moore also said he is surprised that Ford got elected four years ago. “The bigger question should be: Why, in the first place, did Toronto elect someone from the wrong party? Someone who is more conservative. This is not a conservative town. This is a liberal, progressive-minded town. It’s not a town that lives in the past. So it’s odd.”

bruce.kirkland@sunmedia.ca