A forgotten audio tape could make or break Rob Ford’s libel suit

Rob Ford is in court this week over a $6-million defamation suit filed by Boardwalk Pub owner George Foulidis, a high-profile case in which David Miller,  Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy and deputy mayor Doug Holyday are all potential witnesses. Those big names, however, have been completely eclipsed by the appearance of a lowly audio tape otherwise forgotten in the home files of former Sun writer and editor Rob Granatstein. Until yesterday, everybody involved with the inquiry believed no recording remained of a pivotal 2010 meeting between Ford and the Sun’s editorial board—everybody except Granatstein, who left the paper last year. He had a copy all along and had been anxiously deliberating about whether or not to come forward with the evidence. (He catalogued his painstaking struggle to make a decision in a column for Canada.com that’s so heady it almost seems like it could’ve been ripped from the pages of a Dostoyevsky novel.) After talking it over with lawyers, he eventually turned the tape over to the Sun, and it’s scheduled to be played in court tomorrow. Sure, the whole fiasco isn’t on par with the Watergate tapes, but it does feel like a twist worthy of a courtroom TV drama.

(Images: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; recorder, redjar)