How do you explain Rob Ford to kids? Ontario premier tries to do it in French

TORONTO – How do you explain Rob Ford’s “problems” to a kid?

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne struggled to do it in French as she fielded questions from students during a campaign stop Friday at an elementary school in Toronto.

Most of the students asked how long she had been in politics and what were the best and most difficult parts of her job, but two were curious about the city’s troubled mayor, who is in rehab.

One student asked in French about the province’s relationship with municipal government, and after a brief answer from Wynne, the boy asked her how Ford could be stopped.

After giggling from both fellow students and adults in the room subsided, Wynne replied that the city gave the deputy mayor Ford’s authority “at the moment because Mr. Ford has problems.”

After Wynne answered that question, struggling a bit in French, another boy asked if she had met Ford.

She said she had, but not at the moment, since Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly is in effect the mayor.

At the intersection outside Ecole Elementaire Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau, someone had placed a sticker saying “Rob Ford” underneath the word “stop” on the stop signs.