OTTAWA — Relations between Rob Ford, Toronto’s mayor, and The Toronto Star, the highest circulation newspaper in Canada, have never been cordial.
Irritated by its reporting on his behavior as a volunteer football coach, Mr. Ford has not given The Star an interview since his election as mayor in 2010 and has consistently declined to answer questions from its reporters. But the cold war reached a new level last week after a complaint from Mr. Ford led to a police investigation of one of The Star’s City Hall reporters.
Last Wednesday, the Star reporter Daniel Dale wrote that Mr. Ford and his wife, Renata, were trying to buy part of the parkland that surrounds their house to provide, as they wrote in an application, “a secure area to play” for their two children and “to install a better security fence.”
Early in the evening, Mr. Dale went to Mr. Ford’s home to look at the parkland and took photographs of the trees on the land with his BlackBerry. In Mr. Dale’s version, he encountered the mayor, who weighs 330 pounds, in the park “with a fist cocked at his head as if he wanted to punch me.”
According to Mr. Dale, the mayor repeatedly told him to drop his phone while blocking his attempts to leave. Mr. Dale said that he feared for his safety and, after calling for help, threw his phone and a digital voice recorder to the ground and ran.
Mr. Ford, who then summoned the police, told The National Post, another Toronto-based newspaper, that he had confronted Mr. Dale after his neighbor said he saw the reporter standing “on cinder blocks, over your wooden fence, taking pictures.”
He added: “I’m going to do whatever to protect my family. But once I saw who it was, I was more shocked.”
Mr. Dale denies standing on the blocks or trying to take photos of Mr. Ford’s house and, in particular, its interior or yard. Mr. Ford has declined to release a surveillance video that he said supports his account. The Star has suggested that Mr. Ford may have used Mr. Dale’s phone after the encounter.
What potential crime the police are investigating is unclear. While it might be considered a crime for Mr. Ford to use the phone, Bob Hepburn, a spokesman for the newspaper, said that neither The Star nor Mr. Dale intended to take any legal action against the mayor.
The Toronto Police Service and Mr. Ford’s office did not respond to questions about the mayor’s complaint and the investigation.
The chance of a rematch between the men may be diminishing. While The Star is resisting the mayor’s demand that it remove Mr. Dale from covering City Hall, Mr. Ford is now threatening not to talk to any group of journalists that includes Mr. Dale.