‘We feel Canada is our own country’
Mado family reunited six months ago when rest of members came to country as Yazidi refugees
It was just half a year ago that Jasim Mado and his wife Marjan were living in Turkey, having fled Iraq after Daesh attacked their hometown of Nineveh.
They never would have dreamed the only violence they’d soon be hiding from would involve snowball fights with their grandchildren.
Six months after arriving in Canada along with their sons Waleed and Saeed, their daughter-in-law Shamsah and two young grandchildren, the family is proud to call Canada home.
Their arrival in January made them the first privately sponsored Yazidi refugees to reach Canada through Project Abraham, started more than two years ago by the Mozuud Freedom Foundation, a not-for-profit human-rights organization.
“Here, we are safe,” Jasim said, speaking in his native Kurdish, through his son Saadi’s translation.
“Canadian people are very nice and kind. They help. No exclusion. Back home, we were not safe and we were scared.”
Bell said that the group doesn’t take issue with transit agency workers or the officials who run the agency, but argued that when measured on a per rider basis, the financial subsidy the city gives the TTC is the lowest of major systems on the continent.
Bell also criticized the TTC for implementing fare increases every year for the past six years while not increasing service at the same rate.
As the Star reported last November, more than a quarter of the TTC’s bus and streetcar routes regularly exceed the agency’s crowding standards.
“We want better service and lower fares,” Bell said.
The TTC’s approved budget for 2017 was a record high of $1.8 billion, which included a city subsidy of about $545 million. With annual ridership budgeted at 544 million people, the subsidy works out to roughly $1per rider, its highest level in recent years.
Despite the increase, the per rider subsidy remains lower than that of other North American systems, including Los Angeles ($3 U.S. per rid- er), New York City ($1.52 U.S.), and Montreal ($1.16).
At Monday’s announcement, Byford said that APTA had given the TTC the award because of the fiveyear modernization plan that he implemented upon taking over the agency in 2012.
Accomplishments the TTC cited included increased service reliability, “unprecedented capital investment” in new transit facilities, a more positive work culture among employees, and the introduction of new buses, streetcars, and subways.
A statement released by Mayor John Tory’s office Monday noted that in 2015 he and TTC chair Josh Colle announced $90 million in funding to restore service that had been cut under the previous administration.
The statement also said that the 2017 net budget for the TTC and WheelTrans was $80 million higher than the year before.
After a brief news conference outside Tory’s office, TTCriders gave the mock award to one of his staffers, who took it inside.