TORONTO MAYOR SEEKS HELP WITH GUN VIOLENCE
Toronto’s mayor has spoken with Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale about the need to address a string of shootings that has left three dead and others injured in recent days.
“Minister Goodale and Mayor Tory ... are anxious to work together with the province to bring criminals to justice and enhance crime prevention efforts,’’ Scott Bardsley, spokesman for Goodale’s office, said Wednesday.
“When people do not feel safe, when they feel that random attacks can take the lives of innocents just walking down the street, that’s obviously a deep concern,’’ Bardsley said.
Gun deaths have accounted for 23 of Toronto’s 52 homicides so far this year — a figure inflated by the deadly van attack that killed 10 people in April.
By contrast, there were 27 total homicides at this point last year, and 16 fatal shootings by the end of June 2017.
Tory has said that Toronto is one of the safest cities in the world, but that he has “grave concerns’’ about the number of shootings this year and is focusing his efforts on making sure all three levels of government work together to keep perpetrators of gun crime off the city’s streets.
“One of the reasons we have to get together as three governments and as the police service to talk about these things is because it does require multiple efforts on the part of multiple governments and agencies,’’
Tory told reporters Tuesday.
Toronto will apply for federal funding available to municipalities working to reduce crime, Tory said.
The government of Canada is accepting applications for a cut of the $10 million National Crime Prevention Strategy, Bardsley said.
Ottawa is also designing a “guns and gangs’’ initiative with provinces and municipalities, which will see $327.6 million over five years, then $100 million per year after that, invested in community-specific initiatives, and border security, Bardsley added.
Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders has said the vast majority of shootings in the city this year have been gangrelated.
Officers in Toronto and surrounding jurisdictions laid more than 1,000 charges against 75 alleged members and associates of the Five Points Generalz street gang last month.
Police said the Generalz, linked to several shootings in the Greater Toronto Area, were “significantly disrupted’’ by the sweep, but acknowledged that gang activity would persist.
“We realize that drugs equal
easy money and that there will always be people willing to step in and fill that void,’’ Acting Insp. Don Belanger said at the time.
Saunders has said he has a plan to target gangs in Toronto surgically and strategically, rather than flooding at-risk neighbourhoods with a police.
Overall, 11 people have been shot in Toronto since Friday morning when, police said, a driver near Shuter and George Streets took a shotgun out of her trunk and opened fire at a pedestrian, injuring the 21-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man on a bicycle.