Liposarcoma - A Primer

Updated March 2016

It was just announced that Rob Ford passed away after being diagnosed with liposarcoma 18 months ago.  My sympathies to his family.

Liposarcomas are a malignancy of fat cells.  They normally appear as a slowly enlarging, relatively painless mass.  Liposarcomas are a relatively rare form of cancer that affects connective tissues in the body and account for 18 percent of all soft-tissue sarcomas.  They can occur throughout the body but around one-third are found in the abdominal cavity and half occur in the thigh.  Tumours in the abdomen are more difficult to find, meaning that they can grow to a larger size before they become symptomatic.  This type of cancer tends to affect adults between the ages of 40 and 60 years with a mean onset age of 50 years..

There are four types of liposarcoma:

1   Well-differentiated liposarcoma is the most common subtype and usually starts as a low grade tumor. Low grade tumor cells look much like normal fat cells under the microscope and tend to grow and change slowly.  This type tends to occur in arms, back, legs or abdomen.

2   Myxoid liposarcoma is an intermediate to high grade tumor. Its cells look less normal under the microscope and may have a high grade component.  This type metastasizes to bones, lungs, brain and liver.

3   Pleomorphic liposarcoma is the rarest subtype and is a high grade tumor with cells that look very different from normal cells.

4   Dedifferentiated liposarcoma occurs when a low grade tumor changes, and the newer cells in the tumor are high grade.

Tumours with a higher grade are more difficult to treat and the risk of metastasis (spreading) and recurrence rises.  From what Mr. Ford's physician said this about this case, Mr. Ford's liposarcoma is of the pleomorphic type.

Here is a photo of a liposarcoma that has been surgically removed:

Surgery and radiation are commonly used in combination and are quite successful at preventing recurrence.  

The five-year survival rates for liposarcoma are as follows:

Well-differentiated liposarcoma - 100 percent

Myxoid liposarcoma - 88 percent

Pleomorphic lipsarcoma - 56 percent.

Because pleomorphic liposarcoma is relatively rare, there have been limited studies with long-term followup information.  Approximately 5000 patients in the United States are diagnosed with soft tissue sarcomas every year with an average annual incidence of 2.5 cases per million persons.  This type of cancer is somewhat more common in men than in women and there is no association with race or geography.  According to the Mount Sinai website, risk factors that can increase one's risk for getting soft tissue sarcomas are:

Exposure to dioxin

Exposure to chemicals in herbicides and wood preservatives

Exposure to radiation

Weakened immune system (i.e. HIV)

Having lost my father to cancer relatively recently, I can only imagine what the Ford family has gone through over the year and a half.

  

References:

Medscape

Sarcomahelp

Nature

Rob Ford's Campaign for Mayor

Rob Ford's supporters, often referred to as Ford Nation, were big donors when it came to Mr. Ford's 2010 campaign to become the Mayor of Toronto.  

For my readers that are either not from Ontario or are from Ontario but pay little attention to municipal politics, let's open by looking at a bit of background about municipal elections in Ontario before we get into detail about some of Mr. Ford's larger donors.  From the City of Toronto website, here are the spending and donation rules that must be followed by all candidates for municipal elections, keeping in mind that all contributions must be from individuals living in Ontario:

 "Once a candidate has filed their nomination papers with the City, they are able to start fundraising and spending money on their election campaign. Contribution limits for City Councillor and School Board candidates are a maximum of $750 per contributor; Mayoralty candidates can accept a maximum of $2,500 per contributor. Corporations or trade unions are prohibited from contributing to candidates seeking office to Toronto City Council; they may still contribute to School Board Trustee candidates. If a contributor wishes to contribute to multiple candidates, they cannot contribute more than $5,000 to all candidates within a single Council or School Board jurisdiction. (my bold)

There are limits on the amounts a candidate can spend on expenses during the campaign period. These limits are based on the number of electors entitled to vote for the office. The City Clerk informs candidates about their spending limits."

Contribution rules are set by the Municipal Elections Act of 1996 and here are the key sections of the Act:

"Campaign contributions are monies, goods or services given to a candidate for his or her election campaign.

Contributions include:

▪    monetary contribution*

▪    value of goods and services

▪    the full admission price for a fund-raising function

▪   the difference between the amount paid and the market value of a good or service sold at a fund-raising function

▪    the difference between the amount paid and the market value of a good or service purchased for the campaign

▪    any unpaid but guaranteed balance of a campaign loan

*Cash contributions can only be up to $25.  Any contributions over $25 must be made by cheque, money order or credit card.

What are not contributions

The following are not contributions:

▪    voluntary unpaid labour

▪ services provided voluntarily by employees provided they do not receive any additional compensation from their employer

▪    $10 or less donated at a fund-raising function

▪    free political advertising provided it is done in accordance with the provisions, regulations and guidelines of theBroadcasting Act (Canada) and is available to all candidates

▪    the amount of a campaign loan obtained by the candidate or his or her spouse" (my bold)

Under Section 70, contributions can only be made during the campaign period; any contributions accepted outside the campaign period must be returned to the contributor.  If contributions are received outside the campaign period but the envelope that they are received in is postmarked prior to the end of the campaign, they may be deposited to the candidate's account.

The punishment for not heeding the Act?  An individual, including the candidate, who contravenes any provisions of the Act is liable to a fine of up to $25,000 and/or up to six years of imprisonment.  A corporation or trade union that contravenes any provisions of the Act is liable to a fine of up to $50,000.

Now that we have had a brief backgrounder on municipal election laws in Ontario, let's look at the 2010 Ford campaign finances in particular:

Spending Limit - $1,305,066.65

Total Expenses - $1,918,280.18

Total Contributions - $1,942,358.38

At first, Rob Ford's campaign actually ran a massive deficit of over $$639,000 as shown on this Financial Statement:

However, a massive fundraiser brought things into balance as shown here and the Ford campaign ended up with a surplus of $27,307.99:

This was the fundraiser that pushed Rob Ford's campaign into the black:

A total of 245 tickets were sold at $2,500 each, bringing in $612,500 along with 49 peasants who paid only $1000 and another 98 cheapskates who paid $250.00 to attend the Harmony Dinner.  As well, over $104,000 in donations was collected at the door.

Now, let's look at some specific donation statistics:

In total, 388 donors gave the maximum $2500, raising a total of $970,000.  The Ford campaign spent a total of $89,693.95 on commissions for fundraising including $47,781.45 for telephone canvassing and $43,912,50 for workers who sold tickets or who raised funds at fundraising events.  What is interesting is to find that some families gave what would be considered extreme amounts to the Ford campaign.  

The major family donors include the following:

Busoli family of Richmond Hill - $10,000

Cortellucci family of Woodbridge - $7,500

Costa family of Woodbridge - $7,500

Di Rocco family of Concord - $10,000

Pal family of Toronto - $10,000

Rabito family of Markham - $7,500

One of the more interesting donors was Ian Delaney, the Chairman and CEO of Sherritt International, a major energy and mining conglomerate who supplied the campaign with the company's address of 1133 Yonge Street, Toronto.

Apparently, some families were VERY serious about their membership in the Ford Nation!  I hope that they at least got a limited edition Rob Ford bobble head for their loyalty.  What surprised me was that many of the largest donors were not even from Toronto; while they were from places like Brampton that are part of the Greater Toronto sprawl, Rob Ford would not be their mayor.  

Remember the rules about no campaign contributions from corporations and unions and the no-cash contribution rules?  A post-campaign audit completed by Froese Forensic Partners in early 2013 found that eleven cheques totalling $6,000 were accepted from corporations during the campaign.  As well, contributions totalling $13,249.25 were forfeited to the City of Toronto because the contributor of the cash amount of over $25 could not be identified or was not an Ontario resident.  Interestingly, the campaign converted some of the cash donations to bank money orders totalling $4,400. However, despite those and other contraventions of the Municipal Elections Act including overspending his limit by over $40,000, the City of Toronto's Election Compliance Audit Committee declined to prosecute.  Teflon Rob skated free once again.

I always find two things about election campaigns interesting; how much energy candidates are willing to expend to gain power and how much money people are willing to spend on campaigns to gain access to that political power.  Apparently, for many of the major Ford Nation donors, things probably didn't turn out quite the way that they had hoped.

The Ford Family Business

Updated August 2014

Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford has always presented himself to the public with the persona that he's "one of the sweaty, middle class masses".  In fact, this certainly does not appear to be the case, particularly when one digs a bit below the surface into the Ford family business.  There is some difficulty in doing this since the family business is privately owned but, in this posting, I will attempt to put the picture together using as many reliable sources as I can find.

Let's open with an interesting little discussion between Rob Ford and his brother Doug on their  now cancelled Toronto Newstalk 1010 radio talk show "The City" discussing the family business:

Way back in 1962, former Ontario cabinet minister Doug Ford Sr. and father to Rob and Doug Ford founded Deco Labels and Tags Limited.  Deco is currently owned by Doug Ford Holdings, a holding company owned by Doug Ford Jr, son of the founder.  Deco manufactures and sells pressure sensitive labels and tags for the food and beverage industries, health and beauty, household products and promotional items as well as assorted decals, magnets and barcode labels.  It currently has three plant locations in Toronto at 26 and 28 Greensboro Drive in Etobicoke, a relatively new one in California and one on the outskirts of Chicago, Illinois in Wood Dale that opened in the early part of the new millennium.  They also have sales offices scattered around the United States including one in Hollywood, Florida.  According to their website, Deco has grown into one of North America's leading label and tag manufacturing and sales companies.  The company's current President is Toronto City Councillor Douglas Ford and his brother Randy Ford is a co-owner.  Doug Ford's salary is not publicly available, however, to give him credit, according to this article, he donates his City Councillor's salary to charity.  For years, and at least until 2010, Rob Ford served as the company's Chief Financial Officer however, his name no longer appears on Deco's federal business profile, although there is some question as to whether or not he is still involved in the family business as shown in this story.

Here is the company's vision statement:

"Deco is committed to be one of the premiere label companies in the industry. Our goal is to maintain steady growth every year to ensure a viable on-going concern for the benefits of all stakeholders.

We work with our suppliers to achieve the most cost efficient way of delivering our products to our customers on a consistent basis without sacrificing quality and service. We remain at the forefront of technological advancements in order to be one of the leaders in the label industry at all times.

We recognize the value and importance of our employees. We are committed not only to their well being in compliance to the highest safety standards, but also to their growth and success in their career. The support and commitment of our employees is the cornerstone of our continual progress and success in the industry."

A December 2010 article published in Canadian Manufacturing provides us with a bit of a glimpse into the company's operations.  At that time, the company operated three manufacturing locations in Toronto, Chicago and Pennsaulken, New Jersey, employing a total of 250 people.  According to Doug Ford, the company was planning to expand into the U.S. south to enable the company to offer better customer service.  In 2010, Deco's production facility located in Etobicoke near Toronto's Pearson Airport was 50,000 square feet in size and the company employed nearly 70 people on a 24 hour/7 day a week production cycle.  Deco's business was growing by an average of 6 to 8 percent annually through the mid- to late-2000s  The company's then Vice President of Sales and Marketing Leonard Rudner claimed that increased production efficiencies had allowed the company to cut the turnaround time for new orders to two weeks from three and for repeat orders from two weeks to one.  Incidentally, according to his LinkIn page, Mr. Rudner worked at Deco for one year and seven months from May 2010 to November 2011.  

Since Deco is privately owned, it is very difficult to ascertain total sale revenue for Deco, however, in 2010, according to this article which quotes Rob Ford, sales were close to $100 million annually.

Let's look at some additional information.  Here is a look at Deco's retirement (401(k)) plan for its American workforce, showing the key information:

This tells us that in 2011, Deco's American operations had 48 employees participating in the company's 401(k) with 51 active, retired or separated employees.  According to this profile, Deco's sales revenue at its Chicago operation was $4 million and they had 46 employees.

Back in 2011, there was some question about a conflict of interest involving business that Deco had with the City of Toronto.  According to this report in the Toronto Star, in 2010, Deco printed $56,000 worth of stickers, tags and decals for the City of Toronto.  In fact, if you look carefully at this screen capture from Deco's website, you'll see that Deco produced decals and magnets for the Toronto Transit Commission:

As well, back in 2010, the Mayor's election financial statement revealed that the family business billed the campaign over $150,000 for services out of the total $1.29 million that Rob Ford spent to get elected. This included the provision of deferred payment of invoices totalling $119,372 for products and services rendered.  While this was not considered a conflict of interest, it certainly has an odour that is less than pleasing.  

More recently, there was a bit of a kerfuffle over the purchase of the Mayor's business cards from his family's printing business.  Here's the invoice for Rob Ford's business cards which he purchased from Deco:

It cost a total of $1579.15 for 20,600 business cards from Deco, an average of 7.66 cents per card (tax included), largely because the cards are double-sided and feature two colour printing.  This compares to 3.6 cents per card for the standard city business cards that feature blue letters on a white background when ordered from the city printer.  Again, to Rob Ford's credit, he wrote a cheque for $4000 to cover the cost of these cards once it was discovered as shown in this letter:

On top of covering the cost of the business cards, the cheque covered the cost of newspaper subscriptions for his office and mileage charges.  Once again, the connection between Rob Ford's office and the family business looks a wee bit questionable at best.

As I noted at the beginning of this posting, it is rather difficult to put together a full picture of the Ford family business which makes it difficult to assess any conflict of interest that may or may not occur.  On the other hand, while Rob Ford likes to cultivate the appearance of having a working class background, from what we can find in the public domain, the size and scope of the Deco Labels and Tags business would suggest otherwise.