Introduction
Douglas Bruce Ford Sr. (February 27, 1933 – September 22, 2006) was a Canadian businessman and politician in Ontario. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 1999 who represented the riding of Etobicoke—Humber.
Background
Ford was born in 1933 in Toronto, the son of Celia (McNicol) and Pte Ernest Ford, both immigrants from England. He grew up in the Danforth area of East York, Ontario. The youngest of nine children, he was raised by a single mother. Ford was a business man who, along with Ted Herriott, co-founded Deco Labels & Tags Limited of Rexdale, Ontario in 1962.
Ford and his wife, Diane, had four children: Randy, Kathy, Doug Jr. and Rob.
Rob was Mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014 and Ward 2 City Councillor from 2000 to 2010 and again in 2014 until his death in 2016.
Doug Jr. worked in the family business before serving as City Councillor for Ward 2 - Etobicoke North from 2010 to 2014.
Randy is a company director and runs the day-to-day operations of Deco.
Kathy briefly ran a gift-basket business before her run-ins with the law.
Politics
Ford was elected to the provincial legislature in the 1995 provincial election, defeating incumbent Liberal Jim Henderson by about 4,500 votes in Etobicoke—Humber. For the next four years, he sat as a backbench supporter of Mike Harris's government.
In 1996, the Harris government reduced the number of provincial ridings from 130 to 103, a change which forced some sitting MPPs from the same party to fight one another for re-nomination. Ford challenged Chris Stockwell for the Progressive Conservative nomination in the newly created riding of Etobicoke Centre. Despite support from Jim Flaherty and others in cabinet, he was defeated.
Later life
Ford retired from politics after his election defeat and returned to running his business. He died of colon cancer in 2006, only six weeks after his diagnosis. A park, formerly named Weston Wood Park, on Royal York Road was renamed Douglas B. Ford Park in 2010. The small park has a playground and trees adjacent to Humber Creek. The Ford family home backs onto this park.
Ford is buried at Riverside Cemetery, just a short drive from the park named in his honour.