Plus, commentary
On Monday evening, I filed a column predicting Torontonians would take the attack on Yonge Street pedestrians in their stride: process the shock, mourn the dead, heal the injured, support their families, and honour them all by carrying on as normal while the justice system takes care of the accused murderer, or terrorist, or whatever the hell he was.
As the evening wore on, though, my pride overcame my confidence and I found myself genuinely impressed — maybe even a little surprised.
It happened during the Leafs game — the team’s most thrilling deserved playoff win since … well, who can remember? Unscientifically, I would say the joint was far more raucous than it would be for your average playoff game (so, medium raucous). But seeing the same throng of fans watching outside, especially, made me think it just as easily might not have happened at all.
Game time was a mere five-and-ahalf hours after the attack. Police may have been confident by mid-afternoon that this had been a one-man job, but they can’t have been absolutely confident. I don’t think anyone would have been surprised or upset had they postponed the game “for safety reasons” or even “out of respect for the victims.” But I didn’t hear anyone so much as mention the possibility.
It’s not that “the terrorists would have won” otherwise, but there is something to that instinct. There is real value for a city and its people in feeling themselves carrying on, and in being seen carrying on. That’s no slight on any other city that’s gone into lockdown or a prolonged state of emergency: many recent attacks have ended with unknown numbers of suspects on the run or barricaded in buildings. Many Western countries simply have larger populations of people who wish the greater society ill than does Canada. But I found myself surprised and hugely heartened that Toronto, a cautious place in many respects, had forged ahead.
Then there was Toronto Police Const. Ken Lam, who stared down the suspect and who wouldn’t fire his weapon even as the suspect repeatedly mimed drawing a gun. “Kill me,” the man from the van demanded. “No,” Lam calmly replied. He holstered his gun and took the coward alive.
Alek Minassian will have to answer to the allegations against him. Ideally, we’ll learn just what is alleged to have turned him to slaughter with no apparent notice, and how dangerous that force might be. Perhaps most valuable for the city’s soul, an armed deputy of Toronto society behaved in a profoundly humane way toward someone who had just done the opposite — and was seen doing it around the world.
(Part of me wants to say this is exactly what we should expect from our police officers — and no doubt exactly what we get from them every day, in countless situations that don’t make it to YouTube. But fat chance I’d be here criticizing Const. Lam had he pulled the trigger.)
Perhaps part of Toronto’s apparent equanimity is that it hasn’t all sunk in yet. As I write this, the majority of victims have yet to be identified and their stories told. There’s no point pretending it’s not somewhat unsettling. We all know that weak, vulnerable, pathetic or otherwise maladjusted young men are susceptible to all manner of radicalization, from street gangs to ISIL to — ugh, really? — an online woman-hating army of “involuntarily celibate” men to which Minassian may have pledged allegiance. But the knowledge is of no use when the white van man picks the sidewalk you happen to be walking on.
Ten people are dead, and scores of lives have been changed forever by a senseless act of violence. There is no silver lining, but mass casualty events can have a galvanizing effect that accumulated individual atrocities cannot. The list of thus-far-identified victims shows that the impact is being felt across cultures, religions and oceans. Remarking on this on Twitter, journalist and McGill professor Andrew Potter said he used to tell students to ride the Bloor-Danforth subway line from end to end to get the real measure of just how multicultural this place is. It’s true. I’ve lived here most of my life and it still even amazes me.
Of course, what’s happening in Toronto happens elsewhere. Toronto isn’t the only high-functioning multicultural city. But perhaps nowhere bangs on quite so much about diversity being a societal strength than Canada, and Toronto specifically. Like any patriotic meme, it can become tiresome.
Unlike a good few of them, though, it’s actually true. Healthy reactions have been front and centre in the aftermath of Monday’s attack; unhealthy ones have been relegated to the dankest depths of Twitter. Whatever may have motivated the attacker to madness on Yonge Street, the response will stand as a powerful rejection of it.