By THE CANADIAN PRESS
Last Updated: 5th November 2008, 12:37pm
The number of resale home deals fell 35 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area last month compared with a year earlier, according to a tally by the Toronto Real Estate Board.
And the average price was down 10.6 per cent, to $352,974 from $394,646.
The realtors’ group tracked a 13 per cent price decline in the central city to $376,896 and an eight per cent pullback in the suburban 905 area to $336,049.
The number of properties listed for sale swelled 32 per cent from a year earlier to 27,277.
The overall region booked 5,155 home resales in October, down from 7,915 in October 2007 and 6,876 in October 2006, the board said Wednesday in a report headed: “Resale housing market continues to reflect economic times.”
However, board president Maureen O’Neill stressed:“There’s no doubt that real estate will continue to be a solid long-term investment in our country.”
O’Neill suggested that “consumer confidence is being unduly affected by media reports on the United States economy,” and she emphasized: “There’s no question that in Canada the economic fundamentals to support a healthy housing market remain in place.”
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Miller on track to double T.O.'s debt
By SUE-ANN LEVY
Last Updated: 31st October 2008, 3:57am
After budget chief Shelley Carroll and Mayor David Miller had shamelessly sung the praises of their "prudent" 2009 capital budget yesterday, I asked if one or the other could illuminate us as to the city's current total debt.
After all, given that the city was planning to finance 23% of the $1.6-billion capital budget with $367-million more in new debt, I wondered what that meant for the city's steadily ballooning long-term debt figure -- and how much of the operating budget would go to service that debt.
Our strong mayor deferred to Carroll to answer. The Mistress of Doubletalk tried to steer me in quite another direction.
"This is new debt ... this is a budget that's funded on a combination of things ..." she said, before I asked her again, and a third time, for the projected 2009 total debt figure.
"They're in the presentation ... I can leaf through this (presentation) or you can find them ... I know they're in the presentation," she said.
Not only was the city's total debt tally for 2009 conspicuously absent from yesterday's presentation but it was absolutely appalling, in my view, that neither the budget chief nor the mayor had it at their fingertips.
But I suppose it's no wonder the city is in quite a different fiscal state than the rosy picture painted by the mayor and his compliant Mistress of Doubletalk.
To put it bluntly, it seems His Blondness won't be happy until he leaves the city with the same legacy as former NDP Premier (and recently evolved Liberal) Bob Rae left Ontario in 1995 -- with record debt levels and near broke.
HUGE DEBT
It was finally confirmed -- by city finance officials -- that next year's total debt level will top $2.7 billion.
That means in his five years in office Miller has managed to double the city's long-term debt from the $1.3 billion he inherited in 2003!
The amount to be spent in the 2009 operating budget to service that debt will top $480 million -- some $180 million more than what the city expects to collect from the land transfer and vehicle ownership taxes next year.
"Debt is climbing at alarming rates which means taxpayers are increasingly seeing their property taxes go to banks to pay off the substantial debtload," said Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, noting that means less money to pick up garbage or repair roads.
"This mayor is going on a rampage to create himself a legacy and he's doing it on the backs of Toronto taxpayers ... he spends every penny and then some and borrows more."
Now there's no doubt that Miller -- who claimed to have studied Keynesian economics at Harvard -- made it clear he believes in investing and spending his way out of the current "economic uncertainty." (He wouldn't concede that Toronto's economy has slowed as of yet.)
Still there would be some consolation in that approach if indeed the city had money to burn AND if the money was allocated to real (basic) priorities, not the mayor's highly skewed climate change and anti-car agenda.
MONEY MISDIRECTED
It quickly became clear yesterday that despite all the mayor's talk about needing his controversial new taxes for "city-building," only $21 million of the $55 million city officials expect to collect from the vehicle ownership tax will go to road repairs next year. As for the $310-million backlog in road and bridge repairs, it's anybody's guess what has been earmarked for that. But the mayor did tell us with considerable pride that $7.9 million will be allocated to fund more bike lanes.
Another $22 million will go next year to implement David Kennedy's, er Miller's "world-leading sustainable energy action plan" -- money that will be taken from a $245-million Hydro note cashed in last year (which should be used to pay down the debt or prop up the city's ailing reserve funds.)
Coun. Mike Del Grande says it's quite obvious to him that despite all the new taxes, fees and levies created by Miller and his minions, the city is "still digging the hole deeper.
"The taxes seem to be going to the mayor's priorities and initiatives ... his green agenda," he said. "It's basically his way or the highway."
Last Updated: 31st October 2008, 3:57am
After budget chief Shelley Carroll and Mayor David Miller had shamelessly sung the praises of their "prudent" 2009 capital budget yesterday, I asked if one or the other could illuminate us as to the city's current total debt.
After all, given that the city was planning to finance 23% of the $1.6-billion capital budget with $367-million more in new debt, I wondered what that meant for the city's steadily ballooning long-term debt figure -- and how much of the operating budget would go to service that debt.
Our strong mayor deferred to Carroll to answer. The Mistress of Doubletalk tried to steer me in quite another direction.
"This is new debt ... this is a budget that's funded on a combination of things ..." she said, before I asked her again, and a third time, for the projected 2009 total debt figure.
"They're in the presentation ... I can leaf through this (presentation) or you can find them ... I know they're in the presentation," she said.
Not only was the city's total debt tally for 2009 conspicuously absent from yesterday's presentation but it was absolutely appalling, in my view, that neither the budget chief nor the mayor had it at their fingertips.
But I suppose it's no wonder the city is in quite a different fiscal state than the rosy picture painted by the mayor and his compliant Mistress of Doubletalk.
To put it bluntly, it seems His Blondness won't be happy until he leaves the city with the same legacy as former NDP Premier (and recently evolved Liberal) Bob Rae left Ontario in 1995 -- with record debt levels and near broke.
HUGE DEBT
It was finally confirmed -- by city finance officials -- that next year's total debt level will top $2.7 billion.
That means in his five years in office Miller has managed to double the city's long-term debt from the $1.3 billion he inherited in 2003!
The amount to be spent in the 2009 operating budget to service that debt will top $480 million -- some $180 million more than what the city expects to collect from the land transfer and vehicle ownership taxes next year.
"Debt is climbing at alarming rates which means taxpayers are increasingly seeing their property taxes go to banks to pay off the substantial debtload," said Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, noting that means less money to pick up garbage or repair roads.
"This mayor is going on a rampage to create himself a legacy and he's doing it on the backs of Toronto taxpayers ... he spends every penny and then some and borrows more."
Now there's no doubt that Miller -- who claimed to have studied Keynesian economics at Harvard -- made it clear he believes in investing and spending his way out of the current "economic uncertainty." (He wouldn't concede that Toronto's economy has slowed as of yet.)
Still there would be some consolation in that approach if indeed the city had money to burn AND if the money was allocated to real (basic) priorities, not the mayor's highly skewed climate change and anti-car agenda.
MONEY MISDIRECTED
It quickly became clear yesterday that despite all the mayor's talk about needing his controversial new taxes for "city-building," only $21 million of the $55 million city officials expect to collect from the vehicle ownership tax will go to road repairs next year. As for the $310-million backlog in road and bridge repairs, it's anybody's guess what has been earmarked for that. But the mayor did tell us with considerable pride that $7.9 million will be allocated to fund more bike lanes.
Another $22 million will go next year to implement David Kennedy's, er Miller's "world-leading sustainable energy action plan" -- money that will be taken from a $245-million Hydro note cashed in last year (which should be used to pay down the debt or prop up the city's ailing reserve funds.)
Coun. Mike Del Grande says it's quite obvious to him that despite all the new taxes, fees and levies created by Miller and his minions, the city is "still digging the hole deeper.
"The taxes seem to be going to the mayor's priorities and initiatives ... his green agenda," he said. "It's basically his way or the highway."
Picture this: Gun amnesty idea won't work
By EDWARD GREENSPAN
Last Updated: 30th October 2008, 4:46am
If you happen to have some guns lying around, you might be able to get a cheap head start on your Christmas shopping thanks to Toronto's latest gun amnesty program, "Pixels for Pistols."
If you turn in an illegal or unregistered gun, you won't be charged and, in return, you'll receive a free digital camera and photography lessons from Henry's camera stores.
I am not making this stuff up. If it turns out the gun was used in a crime, however, you're fair game for a police investigation. I don't know if you'll get to keep the camera.
Henry's website's "common questions" section includes this: "What is the purpose of the 2008 Toronto Police Service Gun Amnesty?" The answer: "To keep firearms out of the hands of potential criminals."
Great idea, but that's about it. As Alex Tabarrok, research director of the Independent Institute think-tank in Oakland, Calif. put it, "It's like trying to drain the Pacific with a bucket, and more guns are going to flow in."
As with Prohibition, prostitution and drug laws, gun control laws have done nothing to stop people from getting what they want. Time and again gun amnesty programs have failed.
IT'S BEEN TRIED
They haven't worked in the U.S., Great Britain or anywhere else. Toronto's sister city, Chicago, clearly demonstrated gun buy-back programs don't mean a thing.
Handguns have been illegal in Chicago since 1982, yet local police confiscate or receive voluntarily through programs more than 10,000 guns a year. Guns still constantly pour into the city and into the hands of criminals or would-be criminals. And, on the day Oscar award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew were shot to death in Chicago, the city took over the title of "Murder Capital" of the U.S.
Police, politicians and even private businesses can try to stop law-abiding citizens from owning guns through incentives such as cameras, cash or avoiding going to jail, but they are only feel-good measures and none of these will stop dangerous people from getting a gun. The goal should be to get guns off the streets, not to get guns out of attics in boxes marked "Grandpa's things."
The dangerous people in our society are not shutterbugs looking for a good deal on a digital camera.
A 2004 study by the National Research Council in Virginia concluded there is no evidence these types of programs reduce gun violence at all. Most, if not all, of the guns collected through the program will probably come from law-abiding citizens. If dangerous people do participate in the program, they will surely be able to replace their guns quite easily.
It is also not hard to imagine that drug users could see the program as an invitation to get hold of guns just so they can get a camera worth at least $150. They might then turn "Pixels for Pistols" into "Cameras for Cocaine" after they sell their new Nikons to support their drug habit.
Henry's should be commended for its role in trying to create a safer community. But the money Henry's is spending on camera and photography lesson giveaways would have been better spent directly on youth programs, for instance. If there is a serious desire to get guns out of the hands of those who will use them then put more police on the streets. Money and efforts should be spent focusing on stopping the flow of new guns into cities and preventing those potential users of guns from ever using one.
'PUMPS FOR PIMPS'?
You can't help but wonder what other amnesty programs the police may have in store for us. In an effort to curb the world's oldest profession, prostitutes can try to get off the street with a free pair of shoes in the "Pumps for Pimps" offer, thanks to a generous contribution from the Bata Shoe Museum.
Blockbuster Video could host "Pirates and Princesses Day." Bring in a copy of any pirated Disney DVD -- no questions asked -- and get two tickets to the next Disney on Ice show.
Are you getting free cable illegally? Feeling guilty? Turn yourself in and for a limited time get a free month of HBO! It's all part of Rogers' new amnesty program -- "Rogers for Dodgers."
If the police and Henry's really wanted to make the city safer, they would just hand out cameras to everybody and offer cash rewards for every photo of a crime. It might be an invasion of privacy, but it would make more sense than the current program.
While snapshots are far more appealing to society than gun shots, the reality is that this latest gun amnesty program will have no impact on crime in Toronto.
Last Updated: 30th October 2008, 4:46am
If you happen to have some guns lying around, you might be able to get a cheap head start on your Christmas shopping thanks to Toronto's latest gun amnesty program, "Pixels for Pistols."
If you turn in an illegal or unregistered gun, you won't be charged and, in return, you'll receive a free digital camera and photography lessons from Henry's camera stores.
I am not making this stuff up. If it turns out the gun was used in a crime, however, you're fair game for a police investigation. I don't know if you'll get to keep the camera.
Henry's website's "common questions" section includes this: "What is the purpose of the 2008 Toronto Police Service Gun Amnesty?" The answer: "To keep firearms out of the hands of potential criminals."
Great idea, but that's about it. As Alex Tabarrok, research director of the Independent Institute think-tank in Oakland, Calif. put it, "It's like trying to drain the Pacific with a bucket, and more guns are going to flow in."
As with Prohibition, prostitution and drug laws, gun control laws have done nothing to stop people from getting what they want. Time and again gun amnesty programs have failed.
IT'S BEEN TRIED
They haven't worked in the U.S., Great Britain or anywhere else. Toronto's sister city, Chicago, clearly demonstrated gun buy-back programs don't mean a thing.
Handguns have been illegal in Chicago since 1982, yet local police confiscate or receive voluntarily through programs more than 10,000 guns a year. Guns still constantly pour into the city and into the hands of criminals or would-be criminals. And, on the day Oscar award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew were shot to death in Chicago, the city took over the title of "Murder Capital" of the U.S.
Police, politicians and even private businesses can try to stop law-abiding citizens from owning guns through incentives such as cameras, cash or avoiding going to jail, but they are only feel-good measures and none of these will stop dangerous people from getting a gun. The goal should be to get guns off the streets, not to get guns out of attics in boxes marked "Grandpa's things."
The dangerous people in our society are not shutterbugs looking for a good deal on a digital camera.
A 2004 study by the National Research Council in Virginia concluded there is no evidence these types of programs reduce gun violence at all. Most, if not all, of the guns collected through the program will probably come from law-abiding citizens. If dangerous people do participate in the program, they will surely be able to replace their guns quite easily.
It is also not hard to imagine that drug users could see the program as an invitation to get hold of guns just so they can get a camera worth at least $150. They might then turn "Pixels for Pistols" into "Cameras for Cocaine" after they sell their new Nikons to support their drug habit.
Henry's should be commended for its role in trying to create a safer community. But the money Henry's is spending on camera and photography lesson giveaways would have been better spent directly on youth programs, for instance. If there is a serious desire to get guns out of the hands of those who will use them then put more police on the streets. Money and efforts should be spent focusing on stopping the flow of new guns into cities and preventing those potential users of guns from ever using one.
'PUMPS FOR PIMPS'?
You can't help but wonder what other amnesty programs the police may have in store for us. In an effort to curb the world's oldest profession, prostitutes can try to get off the street with a free pair of shoes in the "Pumps for Pimps" offer, thanks to a generous contribution from the Bata Shoe Museum.
Blockbuster Video could host "Pirates and Princesses Day." Bring in a copy of any pirated Disney DVD -- no questions asked -- and get two tickets to the next Disney on Ice show.
Are you getting free cable illegally? Feeling guilty? Turn yourself in and for a limited time get a free month of HBO! It's all part of Rogers' new amnesty program -- "Rogers for Dodgers."
If the police and Henry's really wanted to make the city safer, they would just hand out cameras to everybody and offer cash rewards for every photo of a crime. It might be an invasion of privacy, but it would make more sense than the current program.
While snapshots are far more appealing to society than gun shots, the reality is that this latest gun amnesty program will have no impact on crime in Toronto.
The Group Opposing Miller mulls a leadership convention to pick its contender
Running for the right
By ROB GRANATSTEIN, EDITOR
Last Updated: 2nd November 2008, 2:34am
The encouraging news out of City Hall is the GOM (Group Opposing Miller) have come to the real world conclusion only one person can run against Mayor David Miller in the 2010 election.
Then it gets interesting.
How do you decide who has the best shot at knocking off the boss?
The answer the GOM is working on may shock you -- a leadership convention.
"We'll throw confetti, we'll give speeches," said Coun. Karen Stintz, a viable contender for the role of hopeful-for-mayor.
She compared it to a Churchill moment, make the speech of your life, get your fellow councillors and the residents of the city on side, then run at the mayor.
Intriguing. That said, a convention, like political parties throw, is far from a sure thing.
There are huge issues to resolve. How do you pay for it when candidates can't spend any money on their campaigns until Jan. 1, 2010, and this would all have to happen in the fall of 2009 at the latest?
Who gets a vote?
Will everyone mulling a run against Miller -- from Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong to Coun. Michael Thompson to Coun. Rob Ford to Heart and Stroke CEO Rocco Rossi to even provincial infrastructure minister George Smitherman -- be willing to be part of this competition?
And, if it is councillors who vote, are they really the best people to be making this decision?
But it sure would be fun.
It's the sort of idea that could get Toronto -- a city where many are eager for a choice other than Miller in the next election -- enthused about the vote, and expose the winner to the spotlight.
Under the leadership of the senior members of council, Case Ootes and Michael Feldman, the right -- and they hope soon, the centre -- are working on coming together as a group, developing a platform and putting together, something Torontonians could get excited about.
This can work if the politicians can get past their little fiefdoms and come up with sound positions on city-wide issues the entire group could latch on to and support.
These politicians would have to come a long way from their self-interested, un-cooperative and dysfunctional selves. This group couldn't and wouldn't be forced to vote with the team as in a cabinet, but rather try to come to a consensus.
This plan can only work if everyone who's not on Miller's NDP team, like Brian Ashton, Peter Milczyn, Mark Grimes, Bill Saundercook, Ron Moeser, Paul Ainslie and Cliff Jenkins, pop onto the same page.
And what about the John McCain mavericks on council? Rob Ford, Doug Holyday, Mike Del Grande and Michael Walker? It has to be a large group or any effort will fail.
The most recent meeting of this group happened last week, with seven councillors, Stintz, Ootes, Feldman, Minnan-Wong, John Parker, David Shiner and Frances Nunziata.
"If we can get this group together, I'd certainly be interested," Stintz said about a run for the mayor's chair.
"You can't have eight people on Jan. 1, 2010, fighting for money, fighting for attention," Stintz said. "You're giving Miller a free pass."
Ootes said the candidate to go up against Miller doesn't necessarily have to be a Toronto politician, although a non-councillor has never made the jump to mayor in the modern era.
"I don't care whether it's in or out of council," Ootes said. "It's who's going to have the best shot at Miller."
But will this group of councillors opposing Miller even trust an outsider to do their bidding for them?
Stintz envisions convention speeches in the council chamber at City Hall, Miller's NDPers excluded, of course.
NO WHITE KNIGHT
But what would you do with a Liberal like Norm Kelly or Gloria Lindsay Luby, who likes to be seen as a Tory. Both are part of Miller's hand-picked team. Do they get a vote?
Stintz makes a point all Torontonians need to keep in mind: "I just don't think there's a white knight," she said. "It's not going to happen."
There isn't anyone waiting in the wings for the Bay Street big boys, like Paul Godfrey, to anoint as the next one.
The other big question: Can any of the "contestants" actually unseat Miller?
It's two years, six days until we get a final answer to that question.
By ROB GRANATSTEIN, EDITOR
Last Updated: 2nd November 2008, 2:34am
The encouraging news out of City Hall is the GOM (Group Opposing Miller) have come to the real world conclusion only one person can run against Mayor David Miller in the 2010 election.
Then it gets interesting.
How do you decide who has the best shot at knocking off the boss?
The answer the GOM is working on may shock you -- a leadership convention.
"We'll throw confetti, we'll give speeches," said Coun. Karen Stintz, a viable contender for the role of hopeful-for-mayor.
She compared it to a Churchill moment, make the speech of your life, get your fellow councillors and the residents of the city on side, then run at the mayor.
Intriguing. That said, a convention, like political parties throw, is far from a sure thing.
There are huge issues to resolve. How do you pay for it when candidates can't spend any money on their campaigns until Jan. 1, 2010, and this would all have to happen in the fall of 2009 at the latest?
Who gets a vote?
Will everyone mulling a run against Miller -- from Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong to Coun. Michael Thompson to Coun. Rob Ford to Heart and Stroke CEO Rocco Rossi to even provincial infrastructure minister George Smitherman -- be willing to be part of this competition?
And, if it is councillors who vote, are they really the best people to be making this decision?
But it sure would be fun.
It's the sort of idea that could get Toronto -- a city where many are eager for a choice other than Miller in the next election -- enthused about the vote, and expose the winner to the spotlight.
Under the leadership of the senior members of council, Case Ootes and Michael Feldman, the right -- and they hope soon, the centre -- are working on coming together as a group, developing a platform and putting together, something Torontonians could get excited about.
This can work if the politicians can get past their little fiefdoms and come up with sound positions on city-wide issues the entire group could latch on to and support.
These politicians would have to come a long way from their self-interested, un-cooperative and dysfunctional selves. This group couldn't and wouldn't be forced to vote with the team as in a cabinet, but rather try to come to a consensus.
This plan can only work if everyone who's not on Miller's NDP team, like Brian Ashton, Peter Milczyn, Mark Grimes, Bill Saundercook, Ron Moeser, Paul Ainslie and Cliff Jenkins, pop onto the same page.
And what about the John McCain mavericks on council? Rob Ford, Doug Holyday, Mike Del Grande and Michael Walker? It has to be a large group or any effort will fail.
The most recent meeting of this group happened last week, with seven councillors, Stintz, Ootes, Feldman, Minnan-Wong, John Parker, David Shiner and Frances Nunziata.
"If we can get this group together, I'd certainly be interested," Stintz said about a run for the mayor's chair.
"You can't have eight people on Jan. 1, 2010, fighting for money, fighting for attention," Stintz said. "You're giving Miller a free pass."
Ootes said the candidate to go up against Miller doesn't necessarily have to be a Toronto politician, although a non-councillor has never made the jump to mayor in the modern era.
"I don't care whether it's in or out of council," Ootes said. "It's who's going to have the best shot at Miller."
But will this group of councillors opposing Miller even trust an outsider to do their bidding for them?
Stintz envisions convention speeches in the council chamber at City Hall, Miller's NDPers excluded, of course.
NO WHITE KNIGHT
But what would you do with a Liberal like Norm Kelly or Gloria Lindsay Luby, who likes to be seen as a Tory. Both are part of Miller's hand-picked team. Do they get a vote?
Stintz makes a point all Torontonians need to keep in mind: "I just don't think there's a white knight," she said. "It's not going to happen."
There isn't anyone waiting in the wings for the Bay Street big boys, like Paul Godfrey, to anoint as the next one.
The other big question: Can any of the "contestants" actually unseat Miller?
It's two years, six days until we get a final answer to that question.
It's an 'OK Corral mentality'
OPP boss decries gun violence against innocents
By MICHELE MANDEL, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 2nd November 2008, 2:34am
As we bade goodbye yesterday to yet another innocent victim of random gun violence, this bullet-riddled city has finally declared enough is enough.
No more young girls to gasp their last breaths on our sidewalks of pooling crimson blood; no more pub goers gunned down on their way home to their young sons; no more grocers felled as they stock their stands with oranges on a sunny day.
No more.
OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino sounded the sirens no one heeded during his long tenure as Toronto Police chief. Now he believes we are finally listening.
"We've gone from a time where bad guys were shooting bad guys," Fantino says, "to what we're seeing now: Innocent people caught up in this OK Corral mentality where you can have a gunfight on the busiest street in North America and there is a callous disregard for the consequences."
Yet he is actually more optimistic about the future than he's ever been.
"The more people understand their own vulnerability, the more inclined they are to say, 'Enough is enough. We're not going to sit back and take it anymore. We're not going to be tolerant of these people, we're not going to have charity for gunmen anymore.' "
Surely that time has come.
We feel unsafe in our own city. For a while, there was a false sense of security -- if you didn't live at Jane and Finch or Galloway or in one of this city's other disastrous, crime-infested housing projects, if you didn't belong to a gang or deal in drugs, it was easier to believe that gun violence wouldn't shatter your world.
Not so anymore.
"We know much of the violence in our city takes place among people who are engaged in activities that make it far more likely they'll be victims of violent crime," Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair still insists.
"But unfortunately there have also been a number of cases in Toronto -- and those cases are always shocking to the entire community -- when people who are totally innocent, going about their daily lives, not engaged in any behaviour which would make it more likely that they would be victimized, and because they are in what is often called 'the wrong place at the wrong time,' they are victims.
"Everyone has a right to go shopping on Yonge St., to go out to the local pub and have an evening out with friends. When criminals decide to bring violence to those places, they put everybody at risk and it's a huge concern."
So Statistics Canada may insist that the homicide rate is down, again, and that crime is on the decrease, but it doesn't feel that way. It certainly doesn't read that way, not with the daily headlines filled with news of yet another shooting.
Like most criminologists, Scot Wortley is quick to insist that the numbers do show that we are not in any real danger from street violence. But interestingly, the University of Toronto professor has identified a number of disturbing trends in those stats which even he agrees are legitimate causes for concern.
Wortley says the evidence suggests that homicides are more likely to involve handguns and more likely to occur in public places than they would have 50 years ago. "That's why," he notes, "bystanders are being hit."
In fact, Stats Canada confirms that in 2007, handguns were used in about two-thirds of all Canadian homicides, up from about 25% in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In urban centres, like Toronto, 81% of all firearm-related homicides were committed with a handgun.
The typical murder victim has also become much younger, the criminologist says. "If you are over 30 and living in this city, your chances of dying a violent death are lower than they have ever been," Wortley notes.
"But if you are young and living in one of the disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Toronto," he warns, "there may have been a significant increase in the chances of your dying a violent death. Although our homicide rate hasn't changed that much over 30 years, and if anything it's declined, it has increased among certain populations."
So pity the thousands of young innocents trapped in Toronto's hell hole public housing neighbourhoods of crime -- the Ephraim Browns of this city, 11-year-olds who are gunned down while sitting on a fence at their cousin's birthday. Or the dozens more who narrowly miss death, like 12-year-old Matthew Page who last year had a bullet zoom by his head while playing toy cars inside his Driftwood Ct. bedroom.
Suddenly, Toronto has become a shooting gallery. Last weekend, we even had a gun-wielding 15-year-old boy used as a hitman to settle a score between feuding boyfriends at a 4-year-old's birthday party.
There are children with guns in our city, like child soldiers in some godforsaken Third World warrior state .
Last year, Toronto Police seized 2,603 firearms -- with 817 linked to crimes or had their serial numbers removed. The great big arsenal that is the United States is the source of an estimated 30,000 firearms spirited into Canada across the 49th parallel every year. The chief estimates that 70% of the crime guns being used in Toronto have been smuggled in from across the border.
The rest, he says, are legal, registered handguns that have been stolen from their owners. According to the Registrar of Firearms, there are almost 194,000 registered handguns in the province with more than 1,000 stolen and unaccounted for at the end of 2007.
So Blair is supporting the controversial call by both Mayor David Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty for Ottawa to ban handguns. While he acknowledges it would infringe on the rights of responsible gun owners, the chief argues it's a sacrifice necessary for the greater good.
But at least one victims' advocate -- and retired police officer -- calls the proposed ban "idiotic PR."
"It provides false hope," argues John Muise, head of public safety at the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness. "Those (stolen legal) guns would just be replaced by bringing more guns across the border. We have 5,000 km of border with the United States."
And it is as porous as cheesecloth.
The Canada Border Services Agency seized just 662 guns at crossing points last year, three-quarters of them handguns. How many more thousands slip through, selling for $1,500 to $3,000 each on Toronto streets?
Instead of a handgun ban, Muise believes the new higher mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes passed into law by the Stephen Harper government in May will do more to stem Toronto's Wild West gunplay.
The Criminal Code already provided a maximum sentence of 14 years for anyone using a firearm in the commission of an offence, in addition to any other sentence, but it was routinely plea bargained away. The new legislation increases the minimum sentence that must be imposed in a handful of gun-related crimes, including possession of a loaded firearm, from one year to three for a first offence, and from one year to five for a second.
Whether mandatory minimum sentences are actually a deterrent is a debate Toronto's police chief will leave to those in academia. What Blair does know for certain is that the new sentences should ensure that bad guys are off our streets for a while longer. "At the very least, while they're serving their sentence, everyone else is protected from them.
"We're arresting people with loaded handguns almost every day in the city of Toronto and we want to ensure the sentences they receive for those crimes are significantly serious enough to make a difference."
As well, Blair applauds the new federal reverse onus provisions for bail so that those accused of serious gun crimes will have to show why they shouldn't be kept in jail while awaiting trial.
"What we are finding is that for really violent, dangerous people, conditions like house arrest, curfews, non-associations, boundaries on where they can go -- they're not paying any attention to those things."
He is tired of the revolving door of criminals who are repeatedly picked up for violating the court's stipulations. "I don't think they should get several kicks at that can. If they're not going to obey their conditions and they're released and continue to put others at risk, then the courts have no choice, I believe, than to put them in secure custody."
But there have been tough laws on the books in the past. The question is whether Crowns and judges will actually follow them.
With current court backlogs, the system has become a "sausage factory," charges Muise, the victims' advocate who lobbied for the new mandatory minimums in Ottawa.
"They are under enormous pressure to grind these cases out, to accept pleas, to reduce the number of cases on the docket," he says with much sympathy for the overworked officers of the Crown. "At the end of the day, you need to see the administration of justice as a priority and it's not in this province."
It's a charge that was echoed all this week at Queen's Park by angry Opposition Leader Bob Runciman, who represents Bailey Zaveda's hometown.
"He maintains public safety is number one but that's actually not the case," he charges of Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley, who finally announced a crimefighter's summit after days of pressure. "It's about getting efficiencies in the system and saving money. They're dropping the ball way too often."
So we see cases such as that of Kyle Weese, arrested in Zaveda's murder, who had his seven gun charges in 2006 reduced to one. Or the man charged in the Oct. 13 murders of a Scarborough mother and daughter who was free on bail at the time for two violent sex assaults. Or the 15-year-old birthday party shooter who already had four breaches of his probation.
And then there are all those criminals who are getting at least a 2-for-1 -- and sometimes 3-for-1 gift which reduces their sentence because of the time they've served in pre-custody -- a despicable practise the McGuinty government is lobbying Ottawa to change.
Weese is a glaring reason why. "He had almost a two-year break on his sentence," Runciman says with frustration. "He would still have been incarcerated right now."
Instead, he stands charged anew, this time with murdering a girl just having a smoke outside her neighbourhood bar.
"No more discounts," insists the OPP commissioner.
"I have no charitable bone in me when it comes to these people," Fantino says. "Unfortunately, our criminal justice system does. They get bargain basement justice."
But they shouldn't anymore. Because enough is enough.
By MICHELE MANDEL, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 2nd November 2008, 2:34am
As we bade goodbye yesterday to yet another innocent victim of random gun violence, this bullet-riddled city has finally declared enough is enough.
No more young girls to gasp their last breaths on our sidewalks of pooling crimson blood; no more pub goers gunned down on their way home to their young sons; no more grocers felled as they stock their stands with oranges on a sunny day.
No more.
OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino sounded the sirens no one heeded during his long tenure as Toronto Police chief. Now he believes we are finally listening.
"We've gone from a time where bad guys were shooting bad guys," Fantino says, "to what we're seeing now: Innocent people caught up in this OK Corral mentality where you can have a gunfight on the busiest street in North America and there is a callous disregard for the consequences."
Yet he is actually more optimistic about the future than he's ever been.
"The more people understand their own vulnerability, the more inclined they are to say, 'Enough is enough. We're not going to sit back and take it anymore. We're not going to be tolerant of these people, we're not going to have charity for gunmen anymore.' "
Surely that time has come.
We feel unsafe in our own city. For a while, there was a false sense of security -- if you didn't live at Jane and Finch or Galloway or in one of this city's other disastrous, crime-infested housing projects, if you didn't belong to a gang or deal in drugs, it was easier to believe that gun violence wouldn't shatter your world.
Not so anymore.
"We know much of the violence in our city takes place among people who are engaged in activities that make it far more likely they'll be victims of violent crime," Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair still insists.
"But unfortunately there have also been a number of cases in Toronto -- and those cases are always shocking to the entire community -- when people who are totally innocent, going about their daily lives, not engaged in any behaviour which would make it more likely that they would be victimized, and because they are in what is often called 'the wrong place at the wrong time,' they are victims.
"Everyone has a right to go shopping on Yonge St., to go out to the local pub and have an evening out with friends. When criminals decide to bring violence to those places, they put everybody at risk and it's a huge concern."
So Statistics Canada may insist that the homicide rate is down, again, and that crime is on the decrease, but it doesn't feel that way. It certainly doesn't read that way, not with the daily headlines filled with news of yet another shooting.
Like most criminologists, Scot Wortley is quick to insist that the numbers do show that we are not in any real danger from street violence. But interestingly, the University of Toronto professor has identified a number of disturbing trends in those stats which even he agrees are legitimate causes for concern.
Wortley says the evidence suggests that homicides are more likely to involve handguns and more likely to occur in public places than they would have 50 years ago. "That's why," he notes, "bystanders are being hit."
In fact, Stats Canada confirms that in 2007, handguns were used in about two-thirds of all Canadian homicides, up from about 25% in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In urban centres, like Toronto, 81% of all firearm-related homicides were committed with a handgun.
The typical murder victim has also become much younger, the criminologist says. "If you are over 30 and living in this city, your chances of dying a violent death are lower than they have ever been," Wortley notes.
"But if you are young and living in one of the disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Toronto," he warns, "there may have been a significant increase in the chances of your dying a violent death. Although our homicide rate hasn't changed that much over 30 years, and if anything it's declined, it has increased among certain populations."
So pity the thousands of young innocents trapped in Toronto's hell hole public housing neighbourhoods of crime -- the Ephraim Browns of this city, 11-year-olds who are gunned down while sitting on a fence at their cousin's birthday. Or the dozens more who narrowly miss death, like 12-year-old Matthew Page who last year had a bullet zoom by his head while playing toy cars inside his Driftwood Ct. bedroom.
Suddenly, Toronto has become a shooting gallery. Last weekend, we even had a gun-wielding 15-year-old boy used as a hitman to settle a score between feuding boyfriends at a 4-year-old's birthday party.
There are children with guns in our city, like child soldiers in some godforsaken Third World warrior state .
Last year, Toronto Police seized 2,603 firearms -- with 817 linked to crimes or had their serial numbers removed. The great big arsenal that is the United States is the source of an estimated 30,000 firearms spirited into Canada across the 49th parallel every year. The chief estimates that 70% of the crime guns being used in Toronto have been smuggled in from across the border.
The rest, he says, are legal, registered handguns that have been stolen from their owners. According to the Registrar of Firearms, there are almost 194,000 registered handguns in the province with more than 1,000 stolen and unaccounted for at the end of 2007.
So Blair is supporting the controversial call by both Mayor David Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty for Ottawa to ban handguns. While he acknowledges it would infringe on the rights of responsible gun owners, the chief argues it's a sacrifice necessary for the greater good.
But at least one victims' advocate -- and retired police officer -- calls the proposed ban "idiotic PR."
"It provides false hope," argues John Muise, head of public safety at the Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness. "Those (stolen legal) guns would just be replaced by bringing more guns across the border. We have 5,000 km of border with the United States."
And it is as porous as cheesecloth.
The Canada Border Services Agency seized just 662 guns at crossing points last year, three-quarters of them handguns. How many more thousands slip through, selling for $1,500 to $3,000 each on Toronto streets?
Instead of a handgun ban, Muise believes the new higher mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes passed into law by the Stephen Harper government in May will do more to stem Toronto's Wild West gunplay.
The Criminal Code already provided a maximum sentence of 14 years for anyone using a firearm in the commission of an offence, in addition to any other sentence, but it was routinely plea bargained away. The new legislation increases the minimum sentence that must be imposed in a handful of gun-related crimes, including possession of a loaded firearm, from one year to three for a first offence, and from one year to five for a second.
Whether mandatory minimum sentences are actually a deterrent is a debate Toronto's police chief will leave to those in academia. What Blair does know for certain is that the new sentences should ensure that bad guys are off our streets for a while longer. "At the very least, while they're serving their sentence, everyone else is protected from them.
"We're arresting people with loaded handguns almost every day in the city of Toronto and we want to ensure the sentences they receive for those crimes are significantly serious enough to make a difference."
As well, Blair applauds the new federal reverse onus provisions for bail so that those accused of serious gun crimes will have to show why they shouldn't be kept in jail while awaiting trial.
"What we are finding is that for really violent, dangerous people, conditions like house arrest, curfews, non-associations, boundaries on where they can go -- they're not paying any attention to those things."
He is tired of the revolving door of criminals who are repeatedly picked up for violating the court's stipulations. "I don't think they should get several kicks at that can. If they're not going to obey their conditions and they're released and continue to put others at risk, then the courts have no choice, I believe, than to put them in secure custody."
But there have been tough laws on the books in the past. The question is whether Crowns and judges will actually follow them.
With current court backlogs, the system has become a "sausage factory," charges Muise, the victims' advocate who lobbied for the new mandatory minimums in Ottawa.
"They are under enormous pressure to grind these cases out, to accept pleas, to reduce the number of cases on the docket," he says with much sympathy for the overworked officers of the Crown. "At the end of the day, you need to see the administration of justice as a priority and it's not in this province."
It's a charge that was echoed all this week at Queen's Park by angry Opposition Leader Bob Runciman, who represents Bailey Zaveda's hometown.
"He maintains public safety is number one but that's actually not the case," he charges of Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley, who finally announced a crimefighter's summit after days of pressure. "It's about getting efficiencies in the system and saving money. They're dropping the ball way too often."
So we see cases such as that of Kyle Weese, arrested in Zaveda's murder, who had his seven gun charges in 2006 reduced to one. Or the man charged in the Oct. 13 murders of a Scarborough mother and daughter who was free on bail at the time for two violent sex assaults. Or the 15-year-old birthday party shooter who already had four breaches of his probation.
And then there are all those criminals who are getting at least a 2-for-1 -- and sometimes 3-for-1 gift which reduces their sentence because of the time they've served in pre-custody -- a despicable practise the McGuinty government is lobbying Ottawa to change.
Weese is a glaring reason why. "He had almost a two-year break on his sentence," Runciman says with frustration. "He would still have been incarcerated right now."
Instead, he stands charged anew, this time with murdering a girl just having a smoke outside her neighbourhood bar.
"No more discounts," insists the OPP commissioner.
"I have no charitable bone in me when it comes to these people," Fantino says. "Unfortunately, our criminal justice system does. They get bargain basement justice."
But they shouldn't anymore. Because enough is enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)