Eviction warrants further investigation
Re Longtime island resident hit with eviction notice, Dec. 31
The incredible unfairness and insensitivity of the Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust toward a man who helped found it, is utterly cruel and unforgivable. I wondered if perhaps there were some financial interest in the background that the community lawyer was assisting. Such an urgent arbitrary action on his part is unfathomable and does not even give Don Sampson time to hire a first-class lawyer to defend his case. I passionately love our waterfront. Although never having lived down there, any problems arising prompt me to action, e.g. I joined NOJetsTO in the battle against Porter, attended Liquor Licensing Board Hearings against unreasonable night club expansion and attended meetings of the Waterfront Neighbourhood Association.
It is impossible to view what is happening to Sampson without considering it a nasty blot on the reputation of the Toronto Islands Residential Community Trust, and I believe the situation warrants further investigation. Shirley Bush, Toronto During the Second World War, my mom’s family was dispossessed of their family farm and shipped to Siberia by the Soviet Union. She became an orphan in the process. I’m sure the Soviets were following the rules, just like the Island Land Trust is following the rules by evicting Don Sampson from the house he grew up in. That doesn’t make it right.
I grew up on the island and, although I left 30 years ago, I still have fond memories of spending countless hours at Bruce and Don’s house as a kid. At Bruce’s Celebration of Life there were decades of photos of Don and his sons spending time with Bruce, salmon fishing and hanging out at the house.
It’s deeply disturbing that the land trust can tear a family that has generations of connection to their community away from their roots.
Where else in Canada can you be evicted from the family home you grew up in and that your brother left to you to make room for someone on a list? How would leaving Don and his sons in his family home allow the island to “become a playground for the super rich”?
As in my mom’s case, lofty “social goals” have been used elsewhere and in other times as an excuse to dispossess people of their rightful property; but how is this happening in 2019 in Canada? Adam Wadon, Toronto Gentlemen have no place in postmodern Toronto, most especially those who devote themselves selflessly to care for the terminally-ill. Messrs. Sampson should have circumvented the law and the island trust by marrying the same person in succession: the late Bruce would have bequeathed the lease to his widow who would then marry his brother Don. But the honourable brothers Sampson sought honesty. Adding insult to injury, 18 days to evict anyone, particularly in mourning and over the holiday season, the island trust is inhumane. A.N. Ipekian, Mississauga