Community News
Six shootings within twelve hours; A wakeup call
BY OMNIYA ALI
Three hundred and nineteen, one hundred and fourty-five; those numbers represent the increasing issues around safety circling around Canada as of 2020. According to the Toronto Police Service 319 shooting and firearm incidents have taken place so far in 2020, in those incidents 145 persons have been killed or injured (27 killed). Rounding up to an 11% increase from the number of incidents in 2019 (286 incidents).
Most recently Toronto saw two shootings on August 28th, 2020. The first one took place around 5 pm on Jane Street where two people were seriously injured. The second one occurred around 9:30 pm west of Victoria Park Avenue and Victoria Park subway station where three were injured. Early June, six other incidents were reported within the short period of twelve hours. Which raises the question, why? Is this increase related to COVID-19? Why are shootings still happening during the pandemic? What are the motives?
According to Wendy Gillis of The Toronto Star, “as money and attention have been diverted to the fight against COVID-19, violence-prevention experts, youth workers and advocates worry the issue has fallen off the radar.” Statistics have shown that although many crimes have declined during the pandemic such as robberies, assaults and auto thefts, shootings on the other hand have increased. Speculations indicate that these values are related to changes in the “illegal economy” caused by the global pandemic. As the United States’ border with Canada remains closed, a shortage of drug and firearm trade is presented to the illegal economy, therefore, invoking this lack of stability and safety. This shortage has resulted in minimized access to money for the crime-involved individuals causing them to resort to collecting debts which entail physical and gun-violence.
“I’m not sure how many lives we have to lose to make a change to gun violence,” Sureya Ibrahim, co-founder of Mothers for Peace and a community leader in Regent Park, expressed during a zoom meeting with The Toronto Star. If six shootings within twelve hours doesn’t serve as a wakeup call for the government of Canada, nothing else can. Politicians have asserted to the public, time and again that actions toward gun violence will be taken, and funding directed exclusively at fighting the increasing gun violence issue within the Greater Toronto Area will be implemented. As of early May, “a spokesperson for Public Safety Canada confirmed the first allotment of the $250 million to fight gun crime promised during the 2019 election has not yet been distributed,” Gillis, The Star.
On May 1st, the Trudeau government outlawed a wide range of assault-style rifles, saying the guns were designed for the battlefield, not for hunting or sport shooting. Although this effort appears to be headed in the right direction on the surface, $600 million are expected to be spent on the promised buyback program. A program where legal gun owners will be offered fair market prices for their guns. In agreement with Doug Ford’s statement “I can’t help but think that money could be put at a much better use hunting down the violent criminals and stopping the illegal guns at our borders,” a better program can be employed. If a portion of the $600 million allotment is directed at increasing border security and decreasing guns being illegally smuggled into Canada, these uncertainties can be drastically controlled.
As Doug Ford stressed an emphasis should be placed on “strengthening bail conditions and jail sentences for criminals and gang members who commit gun crimes,” Teresa Wright, The Canadian Press. Rather than allowing them to roam the streets within a few days of being arrested with an expectation that this minimal punishment will demand safety and order within the streets of the GTA.