A depressingly déjà vu note

Acity council debate on gun violence — coming just days after the deadly shooting on Danforth Ave. — was certain to be an emotional, high-stakes affair.

And it was, with Toronto councillors pushing for the gamut of possibilities from increased policing and electronic surveillance to gun control and programs for at-risk youth.

Some councillors raised big-thinking, long-term solutions, but many did not.

Years ago, when the city was similarly seized of this issue, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti wanted the army to drop in to combat gun violence and a curfew on children as a deterrent to crime. This time, he dropped the call for the army and upped the ante on his curfew idea musing that children could be taken away from their parents for violating it.

No doubt councillors were wondering when someone could take him away.

But what was particularly depressing about Tuesday’s debate is that it seemed nothing had been learned from all the previous ones.

And there have been many political debates and calls for action following terrible tragedies in this city.

It happened in 2005, after a spike in gang-related shootings highlighted by the death of 15-year-old Jane Creba, caught in crossfire while shopping; and in 2007, when Jordan Manners was fatally shot in his high school; and in 2012, after the deadly public shootings in the Eaton Centre and on Danzig St.

The violence in 2005 brought us TAVIS, a controversial strategy that deployed more police to particular neighbourhoods until it was dropped last year. This time council opted for stepped-up policing, more CCTV cameras and ShotSpotter, a controversial listening technology that few councillors had even heard of before it was rushed through a Police Services Board meeting a week ago.

There’s no evidence that flooding selected neighbourhoods with police and electronic surveillance is any kind of longterm solution to gun violence and the social and economic issues that lead to it, and plenty of evidence that it’s not.

And yet, the plan council approved Tuesday would see more than $7 million spent in 2018 on more policing and surveillance and just $1 million on community initiatives, including programs for at-risk youth in priority neighbourhoods.

Setting aside, for the moment, that council’s $44-million, five-year plan relies entirely on federal and provincial funding that hasn’t been approved, they’ve made their priority painfully clear: stepped-up enforcement. And that’s proof that they haven’t learned anything. To be fair, provincial and federal governments are no better. In 2008, the provincially commissioned report on the roots of youth violence warned that Ontario must address this in a collaborative and sustained manner or “more people will be killed, communities will become increasingly isolated and disadvantaged, an ever-accelerating downward cycle will ensue for far too many.”

But many of the recommendations by Roy McMurtry and Alvin Curling were never acted on, and the funding that was made available for youth initiatives then, and at other times, was short-term. That means good, community-based programs that can make a real difference simply disappear until the next big tragedy comes along and money is, yet again, found for new programs.

That’s not learning from tragedy. Nor is refusing to act on guns.

According to Toronto police, half the guns now used for criminal activity were purchased legally in Canada. That’s a big jump from just a quarter in 2012 — before the Harper government loosened gun controls.

To reduce the supply of guns that fall into the wrong hands, or as is increasingly happening, being sold for profit, councillors called for a handgun ban in the city. But to be effective it can’t be limited to Toronto — it must be Canada-wide.

Unfortunately, the best Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale could muster on this was to say he’d be “prepared to consider the argument” for handgun bans. That’s not good enough. It’s long past time governments, at all levels, started implementing — and sticking with — the strategies that will have a lasting impact and reduce gun violence, not simply react to it.

Mammoliti’s calls for a strict curfew on children is one example of how little has been learned from past debates