Mayoral candidate Doug Ford had the third-worst council attendance this term — and he missed more than half of all votes taken in 2014.

Ford, the first-term councillor for Ward 2 (Etobicoke North), was absent for 30 per cent of the 7,813 total votes during Rob Ford’s four-year mayoralty. Only veterans Giorgio Mammoliti (49 per cent) and Ron Moeser (39 per cent) were worse, and both were suffering health problems for part of the term.

Before Doug Ford replaced his brother on the mayoral election ballot on Friday, he spoke eagerly of his intention to flee city hall and a council he had come to describe as “dysfunctional.” His attendance deteriorated dramatically in 2014: he missed 53 per cent of the 1,927 votes taken.

He missed just 14 per cent in the 2010-2011 year. He missed 29 per cent in 2012, 23 per cent in 2013.

Ford had duelling obligations all term, especially since the beginning of the 2014 campaign. He served simultaneously as a councillor, as president of family company Deco Labels and Tags, and, from January through last week, as campaign manager for Rob Ford.

He did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. In an unrelated interview in August, he said he spent 99 per cent of his time on politics and only “1 per cent” on business.

“I walk through there (Deco) and say hello to everyone,” he said. “I’m telling you, it’s 99 per cent politics. I go from 6 o’clock in the morning to midnight every single day. This phone never stops ringing.”

Ford has joked, though, that he didn’t know how much work he was getting himself into when he joined council. In his supposed farewell speech to council in late August, he said Rob Ford had convinced him to run by telling him it was a “part-time job” that would only require “a couple of days a week.”

Rob Ford missed 23 per cent of votes this term — 10th-worst on council but still better than his predecessor David Miller. Miller missed 42 per cent of recorded votes in the last two years of his mayoralty, Ford 30 per cent. Ford missed meetings in May and June this year while in treatment for addiction.

The council average this term was 17 per cent votes missed over all four years; the median councillor, 23rd-place John Parker, missed 15 per cent.

Some councillors missed very few votes. Toronto's longtime attendance king, conservative former deputy mayor Doug Holyday, was absent for a minuscule 0.8 per cent — 42 votes out of 5,063 — before he left council for Queen’s Park in 2013. The new champion is Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park), perhaps Holyday's ideological opposite, who missed just 2 per cent all term.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world, that I get to go to work every day and try to make Toronto a better place to live, and I can’t understand why anyone would want to miss a minute of it,” Perks said.

Next-best were Sarah Doucette (Ward 13, Parkdale-High Park) and Speaker Frances Nunziata (Ward 11, York South-Weston) at 4 per cent, Mary-Margaret McMahon (Ward 32, Beaches-East York) at 5 per cent, and Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Paul’s) at 6 per cent.

Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) had a serious medical problem in 2013, but his attendance was poor even when he was healthy. He skipped the entirety of the last meeting of the term, and much of the second-last meeting, with no public explanation. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Moeser (Ward 44, Scarborough East) missed several meetings in 2012 with health issues. His attendance in 2013 and 2014 was less than sterling — he missed 24 per cent of votes over those two years — but far better than his overall number.

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In total, Doug Ford missed 2,319 votes out of 7,813. After him, next-worst were former TTC chair Karen Stintz (Ward 16, Eglinton-Lawrence) at 27 per cent of votes missed, then three councillors — John Filion (Ward 23, Willowdale), James Pasternak (Ward 10, York Centre) and Mark Grimes (Ward 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore) — at 24 per cent each.

The statistics do not distinguish between votes on major policy matters and insignificant votes on procedural items, such as whether to give a councillor more time to speak.