Tag Archives: Toronto

Toronto Without Power

Posted on by elizabeth
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Intersection of Dufferin and St. Clair in Toronto at 10 p.m. Thursday night –

after a flood blew out the Dufferin St. tranformer station –

leaving 100,00 people without power –

in bitterly cold temperatures

Power has been returned to about three-quarters of those customers – leaving lots of people shivering tonight if they haven’t found alternate accomodations.  I hope everybody’s ok.

Power outages in the winter bring back one of my favourite childhood memories.  I lived in a small community on Scarborough Bluffs.  Winter storms often left us cut off from the rest of the world because cars couldn’t get up the hill on the road that offered the only access and egress.  When the power went out too, my parents would light up the fire in the living room fireplace and we lived in front of it for the duration.

Evenings were like camping out at home and indoors.  They would heat water over the fire to make hot chocolate, tell stories and then zip my younger brother and me into one sleeping bag.  We slept warm and toasty in front of the fire, listening to my parents chat away until they fell asleep on the floor beside us.  I was always disappointed when the power went back on.

We were safe, of course, so that made it easier to enjoy the winter black-outs.  Still, I think it reminded us of what we had lost by way of intimacy with the introduction of “power”.

Stop the War

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From nowar.ca:

The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War will host an emergency vigil today to mark the 100th death of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Earlier today, three more soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device as they were passing through the Arghandab district in the southern province of Kandahar, bringing Canada’s death toll to 100. On September 7, Sgt. Scott Shipway, 36, became the 97th Canadian soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

Canada’s death toll in Afghanistan is already the highest since the Korean War, and Canadian troops continue to suffer one of the highest casualty rates of all NATO forces.

The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War extends its condolences to the families of the soldiers, whose names have not yet been released.

The Coalition mourns the deaths of all those killed in the war in Afghanistan, including the tens of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians who have died since 2001. In recent months, hundreds of Afghan civilians have been killed by NATO air strikes.

EMERGENCY VIGIL
TODAY – Friday, December 5
5:00pm to 6:30pm
Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square
Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street West

Jane Doe & Thousands of Women

Posted on by elizabeth
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In May, I responded to the disbanding of the community and women based Toronto Police Services Board Steering Committee on Sexual Assault that was formed as a result of Jane Doe’s successful suit against the Metropolitan Toronto Police.  In that case, it was found that the Toronto Police had been negligent in their handling of her rape, and had also breached her Charter right to equality before the law.

Last week at The Star, Michele Henry insulted both Doe and women’s communities who have struggled and worked against the odds for decades to challenge, assist and support the police to make or begin to make the systemic changes necessary to ensure that rape and sexual assault cases are properly pursued in an article purporting to assess the “gains” made in the ten years since the case was decided and since the re-structuring of a new “Advisory Committee” that excludes community members. 

The article isolated Doe, called her “bitter”, left out the work of individual women and women’s community groups in her struggle and bought into the official police view that “everything has changed and things are all better now”.  [You can read the article here].  Doe mobilized women to write to The Star and set them straight.  This week, The Star has some of their letters:

The woman known as Jane Doe has lectured at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law every year since the early ’90s. Her thoughtful, insightful analyses of the policing of sexual assault and the role of the law, health care, the media and other of our institutions in perpetuating sexual assault mythology has informed generations of our students. The hall is always packed. Just last week it was standing room only during her presentation. Her research, her book and of course her case are part of the curriculum in universities across the country.
It is difficult to reconcile her hopeful energy and dedication to teaching the next generation with the Star‘s categorization of her as “bitter” or “dogged” and its failure to represent her as a woman who has worked in collaboration with others in Toronto and across the province to effect change in police investigation of sexual assault.

In March 2009 our faculty will host an international conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Jane Doe decision and to reflect on the current response to sexual assault. Many of the 60-plus proposals we have received share her position that little has changed in the policing of that crime.

In fact, a 2007 Department of Justice study demonstrates the persistence of a shockingly high rate of unfounding for sexual assault by police. And Toronto’s own Auditor General in 2004 documented ongoing failure by police to follow their own protocols regarding sexual assault investigation.

Rather than isolating Jane and her work, it is in the interest of your readers that you represent the systemic nature of the crime of sexual assault and the many other scholars, front line and community workers who work with Jane Doe or support her.

Elizabeth Sheehy, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

You need only read the report of the Auditor General of Toronto, the judge’s decision in Jane Doe’s case, or the brilliant book that Jane wrote to understand the real story of Jane Doe.

 If you had taken the time to actually engage with Jane Doe’s story and the significant social analysis embedded in what she is doing, perhaps then you would not have run such a simplistic report. It is clear that you chose instead to support the posturing of a police force that was found guilty of negligence and discrimination in their investigation of sexual assault.

If we must decide, as the article suggests, “Who is right – the police or Jane Doe?” I’m with Jane, as are many people who have woken up from a false sense of security and who don’t trust a police force that deliberately squashes the possibility for real change.

Institutional affiliation as a quality of the new advisory committee is not community driven and has often been proven to augment divisions between what actually happens to women and the institutions that they must adhere to. Democracy, we must remember, depends on the courage and challenges of citizen-subjects (not institutions). I think you have forgotten this.

Maria Belen Ordonez, Department of Social Anthropology, York University

One need only look at statistics to understand that the rate of sexual assault continues to rise and women continue to not report, citing fear of the police investigation as the main reason. An article about the work of the Steering Committee would have been much more useful than a police promo piece.

 Anna Bourque, Toronto

Your article is framed by the question “Who is right – the police or Jane Doe?” Given this simplistic approach, I’m not at all surprised the article failed to deal with what the Jane Doe case represents: the political struggle of many diverse women against systemic violence. The Star audience deserves a story that represents the perspectives of these women and their work to address how interlocking systemic violences such as racism and sexism and classism are reproduced by the state.

 Let’s have a little political analysis when dealing with issues of political violence.

Jamie Magnusson, Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Thousands of cheers to Jane Doe, Elizabeth Sheehy, Marie Belen Ordonez, Anna Bourque and Jamie Magnusson and all other women who wrote letters that didn’t get published.  To all the women participating in the international conference at Ottawa U. in March, 2009 to celebrate the Ten Year Anniversary of the decision in Jane Doe’s case.  To community and women’s advocacy groups such as the Toronto YWCA, METRAC, Parkdale Community Legal Aid Services Programme who worked so hard on the Steering Committee.  To Beverly Bains, who helped to design the Committee.  And to women everywhere, who struggle with such persistence and courage  and beauty to make the world a better place for women – and men.  I am so proud of you – of us.

STOP Canadian War in Afghanistan

Posted on by elizabeth
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From The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War

I didn’t notice that the involvement of Canadian troops in America’s war in Afghanistan was a hot button topic in the recent federal election and low voter turn-out might seem to indicate that Canadians don’t care much about this tragedy.  I hope that’s not true and that tons of people come out to the rally in Toronto tomorrow:

The number of Canadian troops killed in combat is quickly approaching 100, the highest death toll since the Korean War. In Afghanistan, the civilian death toll for 2008 is expected to be worse than at any other time since the war began. In late August, 90 civilians were killed by a US-led air strike, including 60 children. Another five children were killed by NATO forces on September 1. Tens of thousands have died since 2001.

The Canadian Peace Alliance has called a pan-Canadian day of action on October 18 to send a strong, united message … it’s time to end the war in Afghanistan, and to bring the troops home now.

Organized by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War.  TCSW Toronto’s city-wide anti-war coalition, comprised of more than 70 labour, faith and community organizations, and a member of the Canadian
Peace Alliance. 416.795.5863; email stopthewar@sympatico; web www.nowar.ca

Hand Guns Bah! (That’s “Ban”)

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From CANOE:

A shooting outside a Scarborough school yesterday should turn the attention of federal politicians on the campaign trail toward a ban on handguns, Toronto’s mayor said.

Calling the shooting at Bendale Business and Technical Institute “unacceptable,” Mayor David Miller said the city, police and school board were not to blame.

“Why should Torontonians, children in this case, be faced with the kind of threats they’re seeing when the federal government could take real action?” Miller asked. “That’s why we’re calling for a national handgun ban. It’s about preventing crime by getting the guns out of the hands of the thugs who use them.

From Global – Report:

Federal party leaders also reacted to the shootings — which killed two in Toronto and one in Calgary and put three others in hospital — as gun violence threatened to explode as an election issue.

NDP leader Jack Layton pledged to introduce a comprehensive program to empower cities to eliminate handguns, except for those in the hands of law enforcement officials. “We’ve got to make sure the funding is there for the police officers that are required,” he said.

He added a new NDP campaign promise to invest $1.45 billion in child-care would also tackle the root of the problems that lead to gun-related crimes.

The Conservatives released a new TV ad yesterday featuring leader Stephen Harper saying he was “determined to crack down on crime.”

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has not made a handgun ban an election pledge, but has vowed to ban military assault weapons from civilian use.

From James Laxer’s blog:

Everyone who has thought about the issue knows that a complete ban on hand guns will not end gang violence in Toronto and in other large Canadian cities.

But it’s an essential step to take.

Both Toronto Mayor David Miller and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty are calling for such a ban. They have the support of NDP leader Jack Layton who wants the cities to have the power to enact such a ban.

Read the rest here

What does Stephen Harper say?  He says tougher sentences for crimes involving guns.  He scores in the negative integers for intelligence.  We’ve known for years that sentence length has little deterrant effect (At best, results are mixed.  See this [download pdf]).  Or none.  Can’t C/conservatives read?  Geez.  One study even noted a 3% rise in recidivism rates for offenders who were given longer sentences.

Then, there’s always this:

Crowded maximum- and medium-security facilities are holding inmates who are more violent, more addicted to drugs and more likely to suffer from mental illness than in the past. Yet fewer are getting the rehabilitation programs they need.

“Some of them leave more violent and more addicted to drugs than when they walked in the place,” says Jason Godin, Ontario president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. “That’s pretty scary for the Canadian public.”

Recidivism rates, perhaps the best measure of the prison system’s effectiveness, show at least 40 per cent of inmates are convicted of a new offence within two years of leaving jail.

The Conservative government is considering a major reform of the system, but hasn’t announced its plans. What it has done is push through new “tough on crime” legislation most criminal justice experts warn will further strain the prison system without reducing crime.

The Tackling Violent Crime Act increases the number of gun-related crimes that automatically result in mandatory minimum sentences, increases the jail time to be served for those crimes and designates as a dangerous offender anyone convicted of three violent or sexual offences, jailing them for as long as they’re considered to be an unacceptable risk to society.

Legislative committees studying incarnations of the act repeatedly heard experts comparing these provisions to U.S. laws that resulted in spiralling costs and rates of incarceration, with little impact on crime.

Officials at Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) acknowledge the changes will increase costs and further crowd prisons.

Read the rest here

Oh C/conservatives can probably read.  They just don’t want to believe what they’re reading.

Olympic Sex Trafficking

Posted on by elizabeth
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From The Tyee:

“Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist,” potential sex buyers are cautioned these days by posters in pubs and nightclubs in England. It’s part of the “Blue Blindfold” campaign launched by the U.K. government in preparation for the country’s 2012 Olympics. The drive is levelled against human trafficking, which often includes forcing women into prostitution.

In Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games, human trafficking cases nearly doubled, according to the Greek Ministry of Public Safety.

Government officials and human rights activists in Canada are worried that Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics could become a similar magnet for traffickers and their victims.

But Canada has yet to successfully prosecute a single person for human trafficking, although the country has been singled out as a major link in the grim global industry in a U.S. State Department report. Human trafficking, says the report, is the world’s third most lucrative international crime business after drugs and arms smuggling, and Vancouver is a hub.

The coming Olympics will only fuel the trade, predict authorities.

Not only in Athens but at the soccer World Cup in Germany, “there was definitely a demonstrated increase in the exploitation of women in the relation to those events,” says Robin Pike, head of B.C.’s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP), an arm of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Taking the U.K.’s efforts as a role model, Pike’s office is working with the Salvation Army to launch their “The Truth Isn’t Sexy” anti-trafficking publicity campaign this October in Vancouver.

In 2004, the RCMP estimated that about 600 people are trafficked to Canada for sexual exploitation each year and another 1,500 to 2,200 are brought through the country on their way to the United States.

Police and border officials need to be sensitized towards trafficking victims, says Norm Massie, former RCMP human trafficking coordinator. “We get the victim out of the situation and reassure them so that over time and with the right people in place… we can gain their support in order to gather the evidence necessary to advance criminal charges.”

While several criminal charges have been laid over the last years against alleged traffickers, not a single person has been convicted of human trafficking so far.

Others countries are more successful in prosecuting offenders: Sweden had 15 convictions for human trafficking in 2005 and 21 in 2006. In the United States, 75 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking since 2001.

The testimony of a trafficked victim is often the only clue to find the offender, and victims are hard to track down, says Pike. “Human trafficking is very clandestine and under the radar and it is the detection and identification of trafficked victims that has proved to be very challenging in about every country in the world.”

“It’s a very new offence… It’s only been on the books for a few years,” says University of B.C. law professor Benjamin Perrin. “Some prosecutors and police are reluctant to [allege] this offence because they are not sure how the court will interprete it.”

In May of 2002, Canada ratified the United Nations Palermo Protocol, which commits all undersigned countries to protecting trafficked victims and punishing those who carry out the trafficking. Three years later, Canada’s Criminal Code was amended to include laws against human trafficking.

The new laws are getting a first test in Toronto, where Imani Nakpamgi pled guilty to forcing two 14- and 15-year-old Canadian girls, who were reported missing, into prostitution after advertising them on Craigslist in sexual poses.

For Perrin, the Nakpamgi case is also significant for eventually calling attention to domestic women and children being trafficked as well. “For many years most people in Canada simply thought of human trafficking as involving foreign nationals,” says Perrin. “Canadians realize more and more that Canadian women and girls are being used as commodities in the sex trade and Canada needs to do more to punish those who are causing this suffering.”

Convictions are further hampered in Canada because there is too little incentive for victims to work with government officals, says Daisy Kler from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter. “[Trafficked women] are here completely illegal… and because they are illegal, they are afraid to use the system. Rightly so, because most of the women are sent back once they are identified as being trafficked.”

Most victims of trafficking are eligible to apply for a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP).

From May 2006 up to today, 43 victims of trafficking have been referred to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, of which 17 have been granted a TRP. “That doesn’t mean the others have been deported,” says CIC spokesperson Karen Shedd. “They might have applied for other kinds of permits, and not all victims want to stay.”

While TRPs have been recently extended to six months, Kler fears that victims still have few chances to build up a new life in Canada. “We know of six trafficked people who asked for TRPs and they got that but none have been granted citizenship,” says Kler. “So part of the solution is to offer women who are trafficked a genuine route to citizenship whether or not they testify against their trafficker.”

The CIC holds no records on how many trafficked persons applied for permanent residence or citizenship.

Trafficked women, especially when they come from poor and unstable countries, need to be protected from being sent back, says Kler. Too often, once returned to their homeland, the women find themselves vulnerable to further exploitation.

Backers of Vancouver’s upcoming “The Truth Isn’t Sexy” campaign against human trafficking point to a similar effort carried out during the 2006 World Cup soccer competition held in Germany. The nation-wide effort used posters, shirts, whistles and beer coasters to get its message out.

The German government says its studies found there was less human trafficking than anticipated during the contest.

Pike hopes that a public campaign will make Canadians more aware of trafficked victims in their vicinity and contact public services if they believe they’ve spotted a victim.

Related Tyee stories:

 

Long Ago in Toronto

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Crystal Palace, 1871

Exhibition Place & CNE Archives

The first Crystal Palace, officially named the Palace of Industry, was built in 1858 on grounds northwest of King and Shaw Streets, south of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. Designers Sandford Fleming (the inventor of standard time) and Collingwood Schreiber based their plans on Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Hyde Park but incorporated more cast iron into the framework to withstand Toronto’s climate (which sounds like the 1850s equivalent of the construction of the Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum). A contemporary account felt the structure “look[ed] very low, and as if crushed down by the superincumbent mass of roof.” The building was designated Toronto’s first permanent exhibition hall and was inaugurated with the annual provincial agricultural/industrial exhibition that had rotated among several cities in Canada West since 1846.

The building was officially opened by Governor-General Sir Edmund Walker Head on September 28, 1858. Attendees of the event were led in prayer by Bishop John Strachan, then treated to a recital by the Metropolitan Choral Society. Among the prize-winning exhibitors was author Catharine Parr Traill, who was honoured for bringing “the best collection of native plants dried and named.” The site would see four more provincial fairs, house the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) during his 1860 tour of Canada, and provide quarters for troops heading west to put down the Red River Rebellion in 1870.

via Torontoist