politics Giorgio Mammoliti Would Kick Gord Perks “in the Nuts and in the Face”

During an interview on the Dean Blundell show this morning, the Ward 7 councillor cut loose.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) was on the Dean Blundell show this morning. Over the course of a 10-minute interview, he managed to both threaten fellow councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) with hypothetical (not to mention physically improbable) violence and (jokingly?) imply that he’d like to sleep with the City’s integrity commissioner. Our attempted transcript is below.

But first, some context.

Mammoliti was one of several guests on Blundell’s show (on 102.1 The Edge) this morning. The full audio of the interview is available as part of Blundell’s podcast. It starts around the 51-minute mark.

The occasion for the interview was a confrontation in council chambers yesterday between Mammoliti, a close Ford ally, and Perks, a left-leaning councillor. (We posted a video of it yesterday. It’s also embedded, above.) Mammoliti was giving an interview to some media about a recent City ombudsman’s report, which is under discussion at this week’s council meeting. The report details how Mayor Rob Ford’s office, for political reasons, did things that ended up harming the City’s efforts to recruit new citizen members for the boards of its agencies.

Mammoliti was telling reporters that he believed the report to have been “politically driven.” He was implying, basically, that the ombudsman (who is actually a woman, named Fiona Crean) had compromised professional ethics in order to cause problems for Ford.

Perks took exception to this, and decided to express his displeasure loudly and colourfully, and in front of the cameras.

Blundell started his interview with Mammoliti by playing recorded audio of the encounter. Then, this happened:

Blundell: So anyway, this guy comes up. Giorgio Mammoliti, city councillor, almost gets into a dust-up with this dude Gord Perks, [who] just went nuts. So he comes over, he does this and then he leaves. Why was he telling you to leave the chamber? What was his big boner?

Mammoliti: They—”they,” meaning the left. When I say “they,” I mean the left.

Blundell: Okay, so it’s the right versus the left.

Mammoliti: They’re angry. They’re angry at what I was saying and what I was asking questions of. And they actually believe they have the right to just kick anybody out of the chamber whenever they don’t want to hear whatever they don’t want to hear. That’s what it’s about. There’s nothing more to it. Trust me. And I didn’t pick this fight. I didn’t say anything.

Blundell: You were very calm!

Mammoliti: I was up with the media. I hate being lumped into that, because I didn’t do anything.

Blundell: And you called Perks on it for how it was, that he was accusing you of being a bully, and yeah, he’s there right in your face, putting his back to the cameras.

Mammoliti: That’s the part of this whole equation that none of us can understand. They’re continually calling us, and I say…

Blundell: The right, the bullies. The left. The left calls the right the bullies.

Mammoliti: They say, “you’re the bullies.” But now people are starting to actually see what they’re all about, and what we see on a regular basis. Only this was caught on camera, which I love. And there was a part of me, quite frankly, as professional as I try to be, there’s a part of me that just said, “Why don’t you try it?”

Blundell: Let’s go there. Let’s hypothetically go there. So, Gord Perks comes over with his crazy, gay-wavy hair. And he comes over and he gets in front of you and he spits in your face and he’s, “Get out of here!” Bad breath and everything. What happens if he actually took a swing or grabbed you? What would your—like, were you planning something? Were you making kind of a backup plan to defend yourself? Because you were being assaulted.

Mammoliti: He would have been down in two seconds.

Blundell: What would you have done?

Mammoliti: I would have kicked him in the nuts and in the face at the same time.

(Huge laughs.)

Mammoliti: It was done. It was done. That’s exactly what I would have done.

Blundell: I wish he had touched you. That would have been the best political video of all time. That would have been awesome.

…

Blundell: He apologized, though. He apologized.

Mammoliti: Because he had to. Remember I said there’s watchdogs?

Blundell: Yeah.

Mammoliti: Well, one of the watchdogs was in the chamber. The integrity commissioner. [Her name is Janet Leiper.] And so, she saw it, or heard it, for sure. And if I would have lodged a complaint, he would have had to apologize anyway. You know, it would have looked ridiculous.

Blundell: How’s the watchdog? Is the watchdog lady good-looking?

Mammoliti: Uh, actually, she’s pretty good-looking, yeah.

Blundell: You should call her a watchcat, then.

Mammoliti: She rides a bike, as well.

(Huge laughter.)

Blundell: That’s hot.

Voice, away from the mic: She rides a bike!

Mammoliti: She does. She rides a motorbike. I ride a motorbike. She rides a motorbike.

Voice, away from the mic: Oh, a motorbike!

Mammoliti: Yeah. You know, I ride a motorbike. She rides a motorbike.

Blundell: You know what that is? Giorgio, that’s a watchfox.

Mammoliti: We all want to ride the hog.

(Huge laughs.)

Blundell: Girogio Mammoliti, everybody.