Blatchford: Luka Magnotta’s messages in grievous deeds add more bewilderment to case

In this artist's sketch, Luke Rocco Magnotta (left) watches proceedings on the opening day of his first-degree murder trial in Montreal, Monday, Sept.29, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike McLaughlin

MONTREAL — How curious is it that in the packages of reeking body parts Luka Rocco Magnotta mailed across the country in the late spring of 2012, the contents weren’t the very worst of it.

The parts — two hands and two feet — belonged to Lin Jun, the sweet-faced international student from China who was killed May 25 that year.

Through his lawyer Luc Leclair, Magnotta on the opening day of his trial Monday admitted to “the physical part” of Lin’s slaying, dismemberment, videoing of much of the attack and posting it online, and then getting busy with snail mail.

All the 32-year-old is contesting, Leclair told the jurors, is whether he was mentally capable of knowing what he was doing or rendered not criminally responsible by dint of mental disorder. Magnotta is pleading not guilty to five charges, including first-degree murder, on that ground.

Through the testimony of three Montreal police forensics officers, the jurors have learned precisely what happened to the body of the 33-year-old Lin after his death.

His torso was found on May 29, stuffed in a fly-covered suitcase in an alley beside the low-rise apartment building where Magnotta lived. His legs and arms were buried in a heap of leaking garbage bags put out on the street for collection.

His severed head was discovered in reeds near an urban lake about a month later in Montreal’s Parc Angrignon. By then, police photographs show, the city was basking in the full bloom of summer, the park lush with new growth.

But Lin’s hand and feet were mailed out, in the sort of standard cardboard boxes Canada Post sells, to the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada in Ottawa, and two Vancouver schools, one private, one public.

The Liberals and False Creek Elementary each received a severed hand, the Conservatives and St. George’s School, a private boys’ school, each was sent a foot.

But it’s the trouble Magnotta went to that is most jarring; he gaily wrapped the extremities of this human being as though he were posting a birthday gift.

Each was tucked in a garbage bag or two, then wrapped in sheets of pink tissue paper and stuffed into identical black gift bags.

Each bore a false name in the sender’s address box (Renee Bordelais sent two, Hurbert Chretien and L. Valentini one each). The political packages had big, hand-drawn hearts at the bottom of their cardboard boxes.

And each ghastly offering was accompanied by a handwritten note, on pink paper, of course, each with a message either vicious, mysterious, or both.

The Liberals were told, “You need to speak to Laureen Teskey and her family,” while the Tories were warned, “Stephen Harper and Lauren Teskey know who this is. They f — ked up big time!” (It’s presumed Lauren Teskey is a misspelled version of the name of the prime minister’s wife, Laureen Teskey.)

At St. George’s, where the box was addressed to “Louise Jones,” Magnotta wrote, “Die B—h! Soon!,” while False Creek got a whole poem: “Roses are red, violets are blue. The police will need dental records to identify you. B—h.”

The jurors haven’t yet heard a whit of explanation as to how or why Magnotta chose the recipients of the packages or for the notes.

It wasn’t the only bewildering aspect of the proceeding Tuesday.

Wearing latex gloves, Leclair spent much of the afternoon solemnly parading before the jurors, holding out inches from their noses a series of prizes he introduced into evidence as defence exhibits — everything from tools presumed to have been used as weapons in the killing (a grinder saw, a hammer, two knives, scissors, two screwdrivers), various of his client’s shirts and sweatpants, and bits and pieces of paper (day passes for the London Tube, a promotional flyer for a party, maps) and other items whose significance or lack of it was entirely unclear.

At one point, with forensics officer Caroline Simoneau on the witness stand, Leclair asked her to fish into yet another paper bag — she was doing this so much it could have been called aerobic testifying — and retrieve another numbered item.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A small case, fake leather, black and white,” Simoneau replied.

“What is it used for?” Leclair asked.

“I have no idea,” she said with a smile.

“So,” said Leclair, as though he were looking down the barrel of a smoking gun, “a fake leather, black and white case.”

He paraded it before the jurors, as indeed he also did a pair of black underwear belonging to his client.

As with the other exhibits, the underwear was given an exhibit number without a word of explanation from Leclair as to its relevance, if any.

Given the lawyer’s comments in his opening remarks, it’s a given he’s not contesting Magnotta committed the grievous deeds in question or challenging the evidence against him.

In fact, on Monday, Leclair pledged to the jurors “the defence will be focusing” on Magnotta’s state of mind and whether he was capable of knowing what he was doing, or suffering from a mental disorder.

“Otherwise, you might say, ‘Well, why are we here?’”

Given his perplexing cross-examination of Simoneau, it was perhaps a more prescient remark than he intended.

Before Magnotta left for Paris on May 26, he disposed of Lin’s body and most of his belongings. His cleanup of his small apartment, however, failed to remove splashes and drips of what appeared to be blood from various surfaces. He also left behind a ruinously blood-soaked mattress and red splashes below the crisper in his fridge.

He also left a message scrawled on a wall of the closet.

“If you don’t like the reflection,” it read, “don’t look in the mirror. I don’t care.” It made at least as much sense as all the rest.

cblatchford@postmedia.com

Celeb activist Leonardo DiCaprio — his social cause will go on

Leonardo DiCaprio speaks at the opening of the United Nations climate summit. Photo: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

He may not be king of the world, but Leonardo DiCaprio sure got its attention. Bearded and grim, there was little of happy-go-lucky Jack Dawson to be seen as DiCaprio took the podium September 23 at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York. His message to world leaders: climate change is not a fictional plot from a Hollywood blockbuster.

The YouTube video of his speech has been viewed over one million times.

It was a star-studded week in activism. Three days before DiCaprio’s U.N. debut, Emma Watson nabbed the global limelight. She’s come a long way since Hogwarts, combining the brains and fire of Hermione Granger, with poise and eloquence, to launch the U.N.’s HeForShe campaign, inviting men to join the global fight for gender equality.

Predictably, their microphones had barely cooled before the haters started hatin’. Critics questioned their motives, their integrity and their right to speak as experts. Words like “hypocrite” (and worse) were flung about. Some even threatened to release stolen nude photos of Watson, as if that discredited her as a feminist.

The vitriol notwithstanding, there are some fair questions: What right do celebrities have to speak out on issues like climate change? And why do causes look to celebrities as spokespersons?

“Another Hollywood actor … now an ‘expert’ on climate … useful idiots the lot of them,” sneered one of DiCaprio’s Facebook critics.

Nasty, but an interesting point. DiCaprio’s expertise is pretending to be other people. He doesn’t have a PhD in Climatology. But most of us don’t. Does that negate our right to voice our fear of climate change? DiCaprio acknowledged that point, opening his speech with the disclaimer: “I stand before you, not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen.”

So why didn’t a climate scientist make the speech instead of a Hollywood actor? Let’s be honest — a speech by Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wouldn’t get one thousand YouTube views, let alone one million. How many of those viewers would have known the Climate Change Summit was happening, were it not for DiCaprio?

Would you have started reading this article if his name weren’t in the headline?

Celebrities are the megaphone, helping causes be heard by ordinary people without making their eyes glaze over.

All cards on the table, we make extensive use of celebrities in our We Days. Through them, we introduce youth to other voices. For every Joe Jonas, there is an Elizabeth Lindsey, National Geographic explorer and expert on indigenous cultural wisdom. Schoolchildren come to hear Macklemore, and along the way they hear youth Ontario-based AIDS activist Ashley Murphy.

It’s easy to knock celeb activists for hypocrisy. “I bet he flew to that meeting in his jet that burnt 4000 litres of jet fuel,” said one Facebook commentator, in a swipe at DiCaprio’s climate cred.

Celebrities aren’t saints. The U.K. newspaper Daily Mail calculated that DiCaprio’s 2014 air travels have generated 40 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions. But he just amplified an important message about climate change that millions of people might not otherwise have heard. (DiCaprio has also given millions to support 19 different charities).

Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen celebrity-cause ambassadors becoming less talking head and more hands-on. Mia Farrow routinely travels to parts of Africa where many aid workers fear to tread. Martin Sheen has been arrested 66 times for participating in environmental and peace protests.

And you’d be surprised how expert celebrities can actually be. We’ve seen Farrow leave a room full of U.N. development specialists speechless at her depth of knowledge about the issues facing refugees and genocide-affected communities in Africa.

But what celebrities do best is get attention for issues that matter. They are the punchy headline in your Facebook feed that makes you want to click the link. Don’t believe us? Leonardo DiCaprio just got you to read an article that mentions climate 11 times.

Brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger founded a platform for social change that includes the international charity Free The Children, the social enterprise Me to We and the youth empowerment movement We Day.

Blatchford: Luka Magnotta’s lawyer to focus on accused’s state of mind at murder trial

Lin Diran, father of victim Lin Jun, walks to the courtroom for the murder trial of Luka Magnotta in Montreal on Monday. Photo: RYAN REMIORZ/The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — As lawyer Daniel Urbas said Monday, in his kind but un-theatrical manner, of Lin Jun’s poor father, no matter what happens here at the trial of his son’s killer, “It will not get any better for him.”

But things could get much brighter for the man now on trial for first-degree murder and assorted other offences in Lin’s May 25, 2012 slaying and dismemberment, one Luka Rocco Magnotta, né Eric Newman of Toronto.

In a curious sequence of events, Magnotta was formally arraigned and duly sombrely uttered two words — not guilty — to each of the five counts he faces.

Minutes later, Quebec Superior Court Judge Guy Cournoyer told the jurors Magnotta “admits the acts or the conduct underlying the five offences” and that their task is to “determine if the Crown has proven he committed the offences with required state of mind for each offence.”

In other words, it’s now a sad-not-bad trial that could see Magnotta, 32, found not criminally responsible, or NCR, and face not a lengthy prison sentence but an indefinite term in a mental-health institution.

Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier, left, leaves the the Montreal Courthouse as jury selection begins in the Luka Magnotta murder trial. (Graham Hughes/ Canadian Press)

Fittingly, in a province where language is so often at the centre of things, so it is again here, only this time it’s Latin: Magnotta, as his lawyer, Luc Leclair, told the jurors, admits the “actus reus” (the prohibited or guilty acts) but not the “mens rea” (the guilty mind).

In addition to the murder of Lin, a 33-year-old student from China who was studying at Concordia University, Magnotta is charged with committing an indignity to a human body, publishing and mailing obscene material (via a video he posted online within hours of Lin’s death and by snail-mailing his hands and feet across the country) and criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper through “writings that accompanied those body parts.”

Leclair, who delivered the first part of his opening in French — though it’s because his client is a unilingual anglophone that the court selected only fully bilingual jurors and is providing simultaneous translation — told the jurors the defence will focus on Magnotta’s state of mind because “otherwise, you might say, ‘Well, why are we here?’

“Mr. Magnotta is going to raise the issue of mental disorder,” he said, and promised “I will show that at the time of the events, he was not criminally responsible.”

To that end, Leclair delivered a rambling history — it appears he has not met a sentence he is moved to complete — of Magnotta’s early days and various diagnoses.

In this artist’s sketch, Luke Rocco Magnotta watches proceedings on the opening day of his first-degree murder trial. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike McLaughlin)

He told the jurors Magnotta’s father, Donald Newman, is a schizophrenic and that his wife, who isn’t Magnotta’s mother, is too. Leclair said he anticipates Newman will testify, but warned, “he is a bit of a mercurial person.”

It was Newman, Leclair said, who first took his client to a doctor because he was worried something was wrong with him.

At different times, he said, Magnotta has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, as a just-plain schizophrenic, as psychotic and as suffering borderline personality disorder, one of the hardest to treat disorders but, as with other such illnesses, not often seen as precluding someone from appreciating what he’s doing.

In fact, Leclair said, about two months before Lin’s death Magnotta saw a psychiatrist at Montreal Jewish General and had a one-hour assessment.

It was that doctor who diagnosed him as a borderline, one of those who are terrified of abandonment, prone to chaotic relationships and sometimes risky behaviour.

“Probably, if it (the assessment) was done another way,” Leclair said casually, “we wouldn’t be here today.”

Another sketch of Luke Rocco Magnotta on Day One of his first-degree murder trial in Montreal. (Sketch by Atalante)

With that remark and others — he said a Toronto Sun reporter who interviewed Magnotta in 2007 thought he was acting oddly “but, you know, nothing was done” — Leclair seemed to suggest his client had been failed.

Yet prosecutor Louis Bouthillier painted a very different picture in his no-nonsense opening address.

He told the jurors the evidence will show the murder of Lin was planned “up to six months in advance” and that in the notorious video Magnotta posted online, the first 53 seconds were shot a week before Lin’s death and feature “another man, alive and bound” in the same manner that Lin was bound, though he was never seen alive again after being caught on surveillance camera, entering Magnotta’s apartment building.

The inference was clear: This was Magnotta’s dry run, with the unidentified man surely the luckiest in Montreal.

The approximately 11 minutes of video were once described by Leclair “as graphic, gruesome and potentially upsetting.” Bouthillier said flatly, “and they are.”

Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier at the Montreal courthouse. (John Kenney / THE GAZETTE)

Jurors got their first unhappy taste of what’s to come when Caroline Simoneau, a Montreal police photographer, described dozens of crime scene pictures as they flashed on screen.

Bouthillier said a British reporter from the London Sun will testify that in December 2011, he tracked down Magnotta in London (in connection with a cat-killing video, Leclair later elaborated) and recorded their meeting. Magnotta followed this up with an email to the newspaper, saying “he was planning to kill a human being and that he was going to make a movie.”

Lin’s torso was found in a suitcase, his legs and arms in garbage bags, outside Magnotta’s building within days of his death. His head was discovered a month later in a park.

Bouthillier noted that “You often hear, in society in general, that there is no justice. You will live the justice experience from the inside here,” he told the jurors, his clear hope they will find it alive and well and living in Montreal.

Lin’s father, Lin Diran, is the only family member attending the trial, with his mother and sister remaining in China, too shattered to even enter the Palais de Justice. Urbas, who is representing the family pro bono, said the father is mostly watching the trial from a small private room.

Can girls be heroes? Target’s pajamas say no

Aimée Morrison tweeted these pajamas she found at a Target store. Photo: (By Christine Robinson Logel via Twitter)

In today’s entrenched-sexism-in-baby-clothing news: girls can’t be super heroes.

Well, at least if you ask Target, which is selling a pair of tot-sized onesies. The pink one (because, girls!) proclaims, “I only date heroes.” While the neutral black-and-grey offering announces the wearer is a “Future Man of Steel” below the Superman logo.

Not only are the pajamas sexist in assuming girls can’t be heroes — Superwoman, Batgirl, Buffy and Katniss are all secretly men, apparently — but they’re also kinda creepy. I mean, if your girl (or pink-loving guy) is still wearing footie pajamas, should they really be dating anyone, hero or otherwise?

The pajamas were flagged by Aimée Morrison, University of Waterloo professor, on Twitter under her handle @digiwonk.

Target’s corporate media line did not immediately return request for comment, but the store’s assistant manager apparently didn’t see the issue.

Morrison said in an interview it’s actually a fellow professor Christine Robinson Logel’s photo and she asked to share it on Twitter. It was snapped at a Target in Waterloo, Ontario when Logel was shopping with her two daughters.

The assistant manager of the store was approached about the pairing of pajamas and she said they were “cute.” Logel said in an email she explained the issue to the assistant manager — the clothes are “an example how, from birth, boys are taught that they can be strong and accomplish things, and girls are taught that their sexuality and relationships to men are what matter.” She also told the store she’s a social psychologist and left her email.

“I have not heard back. It’s been over 24 hours,” Logel said.

“We did not think they were cute,” said Morrison when asked why she shared the photo to Twitter after seeing it on Logel’s Facebook.

“We talk about the sexualization of girls, it’s not like a g-string onesies, but this makes reference to dating. This is an infant,” said Morrison, an English prof who specializes in new media. “It’s already imagining the wearer of the pink onesie as someone whose identity is wrapped up in who they date, and the wearer of the black onesie as someone who gets to have their own identity.”

“It’s the two sets of pajamas placed against each other. It’s the contrast between what we imagine in the future for boys and what we imagine in the future for girls,” Morrison said. “One is, ‘I can grow up to be somebody powerful,’ and the other one is ‘I can grow up to date somebody powerful.”

“It’s not like the boys’ onesie said ‘I’m going to date supergirl some day,’ and the girls’ said ‘I’m going to date superboy someday’… when you put the two together, it actually says a lot about how we socialize boys and girls to think of what their future holds for them, where they get their power in  the world.”

Logel also pointed out that such clothing can also send subconscious signals to adults around the children: “No matter how much adults believe that boys and girls are equal, and men and women are equal, the words on those outfits are likely to trigger behaviour from them that conforms to those gender norms too – teaching the boy to be active and strong and the girl to be passive and pretty. Psychology research supports my prediction.”

But the psychology prof is also “gratified” by the growing online backlash. She said, “It shows that people do understand that babies are all just babies, and it’s not fair to typecast them when they are so young, and restrict who they can become when they grow up.”

What do you think? Is this just typical for kids clothing or over the line? Weigh in in the comments section.

Harper gives EU leaders free plane ride on heels of free-trade deal

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, centre, shakes hands with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, left, and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy at a meeting in Brussels on June 4. Photo: The Associated Press

OTTAWA — The Prime Minister’s Office is defending a decision to give a European Union delegation a free plane flight home last Friday at a cost that a media report estimated at more than $300,000.

Jason MacDonald says a Canadian Forces Airbus was offered as a courtesy to ensure “that no elements” of Friday’s Canada-EU summit were cut short.

Two top European Union leaders, Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso, were in Ottawa where they signed a Canada-EU free-trade agreement.

The CBC reported that adding a Toronto reception to the visit would have made it impossible for the EU delegation to catch a commercial flight from Ottawa and make it to a Saturday meeting in Brussels.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper authorized the use of the Airbus that he normally uses on foreign trips, the CBC said.

Sunday’s report estimated the cost of the flight to be in the neighbourhood of $338,055, basing its calculations on government figures from 2012 on the estimated hourly cost to operate the aircraft.

An initial email response from MacDonald did not contest the CBC’s cost estimate, instead touting the benefits of the trade deal and the summit.

“Friday’s Summit allowed business leaders to meet and discuss the opportunities the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement present,” the email said. “The Airbus was offered as a courtesy to our European Union guests.”

Harper has touted the trade deal as a major achievement for his government, which faces an election next year.

Last year he flew to Brussels with great fanfare for a signing ceremony on an agreement in principle.

Concerns were raised last week that some EU members might try to scuttle the deal, but Van Rompuy, the European Council president and Barroso, the European Commission president, both joined Harper in dismissing any suggestion the deal faced any significant difficulties.

It must still be approved by all 28 EU members and the Canadian provinces.

Spy watchdog’s past oil ties spark concerns in civil liberties complaint case

Yves Fortier seen in Montreal in 2007. Photo: Montreal Gazette/Gordon Beck

By Jim Bronskill

OTTAWA — A civil liberties group is objecting to Canada’s spy watchdog assigning Yves Fortier to investigate alleged spying on environmental activists, citing a conflict due to his former petroleum industry ties.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association’s lawyer has written to the Security Intelligence Review Committee asking that Fortier “recuse himself from any participation” in the matter since he once sat on the board of TransCanada Pipelines — the company behind the Keystone XL project.

Fortier, one of three review committee members, was recently appointed to lead an investigation into the association’s complaint that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service gathered and shared information about activists opposed to Canada’s energy policies.

The association filed the complaint with the review committee in February after media reports suggested that CSIS and other government agencies consider protests and opposition to the petroleum industry as possible threats to national security.

The complaint also cited reports that CSIS had worked with and shared information with the National Energy Board about so-called “radicalized environmentalist” groups seeking to participate in the board’s hearings on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline project, which would see Alberta crude flow to westward to Kitimat, B.C.

The groups included Leadnow, ForestEthics Advocacy Association, the Council of Canadians, the Dogwood Initiative, EcoSociety, the Sierra Club of British Columbia and Idle No More, the indigenous rights movement.

“None of these groups are criminal organizations, nor do they have any history of advocating, encouraging, or participating in criminal activity,” says the Feb. 6 complaint.

None of these groups are criminal organizations, nor do they have any history of advocating, encouraging, or participating in criminal activity.

The CSIS Act is clear that “lawful advocacy, protest or dissent” cannot be regarded as threats to national security, the complaint adds.

Former cabinet minister Chuck Strahl stepped down as chairman of the review committee earlier this year after it was revealed he had registered as a lobbyist on behalf of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project.

The complaint says while Strahl “had done the right thing,” remaining review committee members with current or past ties to the petroleum industry — namely Fortier and Denis Losier, who sat on the board of Enbridge NB — should not be involved in the matter. (Losier has since left the committee.)

Paul Champ, a lawyer for the civil liberties association, says a copy of the complaint was sent to CSIS director Michel Coulombe but no reply was received.

Earlier this month, the review committee informed Champ that Fortier had been assigned to the complaint.

Fortier, an accomplished lawyer and former ambassador to the United Nations, has served as a director for many Canadian corporations. He was appointed to the review committee in August 2013.

Fortier’s assignment to the civil liberties association’s complaint prompted a Sept. 25 letter from Champ to the committee reiterating the B.C. group’s position that despite Fortier’s “exemplary reputation,” his involvement creates an appearance of bias.

“Indeed, he is clearly a Canadian of extraordinary accomplishment and rectitude who has made significant contributions to Canada,” the letter says.

“Still, the BCCLA submits that this is a highly serious complaint and should be handled in a manner that is in every way beyond reproach, with justice not only done, but seen to be done.”

A sign for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service building is shown in Ottawa in May 2013. The spy service has allegedly been monitoring peaceful environmental protesters and activists for their opposition to the oil industry. (CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

Josh Paterson, executive director of the civil liberties association, said he hopes the review committee “will consider it very carefully, and that Mr. Fortier might decide to step back from this one.”

The review committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Aside from Fortier, the other current review committee members are Gene McLean, a private security specialist, and Deborah Grey, a former MP who is serving as interim chairwoman.

Follow @JimBronskill

Rob Ford back in public eye for first time since being hospitalized

Rob Ford makes his first public appearance after getting out of hospital for cancer treatment at a campaign event for his brother Doug in Rexdale on September 27, 2014 Photo: J.P. Moczulski for National Post

By Will Campbell

TORONTO — A defiant Toronto Mayor Rob Ford returned to the public spotlight Saturday, talking tough about the cancer racking his body by saying he’d take it “out the back” and get rid of it like he did his substance abuse problems.

Ford mounted a small stage at his family’s annual barbeque party and, backed by Tom Petty’s hit “I Won’t Back Down,” told a boisterous crowd of hundreds that he was going to triumph over his latest struggle just as he successfully tackled substance abuse during a stint in rehab that ended three months back.

“I had a guy I was looking in the mirror every morning and saying, you know what I can’t beat this guy. Wherever I went, that guy was there — and he was beating me every time — so you know what, I took that guy out the back, and I took care of him,” Ford said, his voice sounding hoarse at times.

“A couple weeks ago, the doctor came up to me… He says, we got someone bigger and badder than that, and I said, who’s that guy? And he said cancer,” Ford told the crowd.

“I said, you know what, go tell cancer that I’m going to put him where I put that guy in the mirror three months ago.”

Go tell cancer that I’m going to put him where I put that guy in the mirror three months ago.

Doctors detected a tumour in Ford’s abdomen and he is now undergoing treatment for a rare and aggressive form of cancer. He was released from hospital this week after undergoing chemotherapy and further treatments are planned.

Ford bowed out of the mayor’s race this month, but is instead seeking a seat on council. His brother, Doug, has now jumped into the Oct. 27 mayoral contest in his place with Ford’s enthusiastic approval.

Toronto mayoral candidate Doug Ford arrives at Fordfest in Rexdale, a campaign event featuring free kiddie rides and food, in Rexdale, September 27, 2014 (J.P. Moczulski for National Post)

Saturday’s burgers-and-pops barbecue public party came exactly one month before the election. Ford was out one night prior doing some door-to-door campaigning.

Long lines of hungry Ford fans snaked away from a busy grill, while shorter queues formed to nab Rob Ford bobblehead dolls, with proceeds going to his brother’s mayoral campaign.

Though the crowd’s spirits were high, the ailing mayor’s health loomed large over the event.

Supporter Leo Robinson, clutching a sign slagging a mayoral rival, said although Ford was battling a rare cancer, he shouldn’t quit politics but rather keep at it and stand up for the little guys.

“He’s for the people. And once you’re for the people, at the end of the day, whether you’re here or not, you’re still going to be fighting for the people,” Robinson said.

“And that’s what he’s doing — and that’s important.”

Ford fan Silvana Macaro said Ford’s willingness to run for office again — albeit for council, not mayor — reveals his inner fortitude.

“It shows me that he believes in the city — he’s strong enough to fight for the city,” she said, standing next to the meal line.

“A lot of people would drop out. He cares to the point of putting everything else behind him. I wish he succeeds.”

Ford gave heartfelt thanks to his supporters, known in Toronto as “Ford Nation.”

“Every single person has had personal problems in life,” he said. “You find out who your real friends are and Ford Nation has never wavered one iota.”

Ford became an international celebrity last year after months of scandal, including admitting to using crack cocaine during a “drunken stupor.”

He has repeatedly said he’s not a drug addict, but entered rehab for substance-abuse problems this year. Council voted to strip him of most of his powers last year and his role has largely been symbolic.

Members of the crowd wait to greet Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother Doug Ford at Ford Fest in Toronto on Saturday September 27, 2014. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young)