The York Jets Soccer Club under-17 boys soccer team practising this afternoon in cold conditions at the Weston Sports Complex soccer field in Lions Park. The club has been active since 1983 and in February, the under 17s played in the Mayors Cup International Soccer Showcase in Las Vegas.
The team is looking for under-17 boys interested in playing in YJSC’s rep program. Call (416) 652-6904 for more details.
The Weston Village inaugural Easter egg hunt will be this Sunday from 9:30 to 11 (or, more likely, 9:30 to 9:31). Rumour has it that the Easter Bunny will be dropping by!
If you’re interested in contributing to this super-great idea, hop on by the Weston Village Neighbours’ Group on Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook, let me know, and I’ll help.
A small group of about 25 ACORN members marched from the Oldstonehenge condo site, at 1705 Weston Road, to the Greenlands Supermarket. They were drawing attention to gentrification in Weston, especially the number of new condo buildings and the loss of affordable supermarkets.
Faisal Hassan, NDP candidate. Photo by Roy.
Photo by Roy
Photo by Roy
The march was a remarkably low-key affair, and ACORN didn’t really make demands—they asked, quite nicely, to have low-income people taken into consideration when new developments are considered. Carla Scott, the Weston chapter chair said,
We’re fighting to stop gentrification in Weston. We’re not against development. We want to live in nice places. We want to have a nice area to live in, but we’re saying ‘don’t make it unaffordable for us’.
Scarlettwood Court is a TCHC housing complex in Greater Weston™, just off Scarlett road, on the opposite side of the Humber. The development was built in the 1960s and is home to hundreds of families from a wide variety of backgrounds. Planners (as they did back then) created an isolated enclave in a beautiful setting overlooking Raymore Park with two main entrances; one from busy Scarlett Road and the other from Waterton. There is a little used pathway that leads down to Raymore Park.
The main entrance to Scarlettwood off Scarlett Road.
In recent years, several shootings have left residents on edge and fearful. These are the major incidents I have been able to track down.
March 2018: Nnamdi Ogba, 26, of Toronto shot dead. – unsolved
*Cold cases are unsolved crimes older than three years.
Toronto Police claim a ‘clearance’ or solving rate for murders of 80%. Clearly 21st Century murders at Scarlettwood have a clearance rate of 0%.
Scarlettwood’s other entrance from Waterton.
The reason behind the spate of shootings is unclear but the story goes that Scarlettwood is the home of the ‘All Crips Gang‘ which apparently has territorial claims stretching down to Dundas Street. Presumably they deal in drugs and other contraband. There may have been a truce between the various gangs at one time but that seems to have ended. According to police, the latest shooting of Mr Ogba, an electrical engineer, seems to have been entirely by chance; criminals from outside Scarlettwood appear to have selected him randomly.
The local councillor for Scarlettwood (in Ward 2) is Mike Ford who responded to my email on March 19 to say,
“I thank you for bringing this concern to my attention and I do sincerely sympathize with you.
I want to assure you that the safety of Etobicoke is at my highest priority and any violence especially criminal violence is a serious concern.
I have spoken with Mayor Tory and Toronto Police Chief in the past and I will be doing the same for this incident. Although there is no easy answer to this problem I will be following up with yourself and the community for their input on this matter.”
I replied to the councillor that if anyone needs sympathy and help, it’s the law-abiding people trying to raise their families, trapped in the confines of Scarlettwood Court.
Residents told me that dozens of police responded on the night of the murder. Cruisers were parked all along Scarlett Road. Today when I walked through Scarlettwood, there was no police presence and residents confirmed that the police are a rare sight.
What’s to be done?
The Mayor should bring his travelling podium show and together with Councillor Mike Ford visit Scarlettwood to meet with residents and listen to concerns. This would show solidarity with residents.
Toronto Police need to get out of their cars and make meaningful and lasting contact with residents. The Community Safety Unit run by TCHC does not absolve police of their ongoing responsibilities. Police also need to avoid showing up in large numbers rather than in ones and twos.
Community groups and social justice warriors should make this their fight too. They need to contact residents and help organize some kind of community association (if none exists) and start a ‘take back Scarlettwood’ movement.
Politicians, police and the community should make and implement a plan of action to support residents.
Because of the limited entrances to Scarlettwood Court, in addition to the existing cameras, it would seem logical to have good quality cameras set up to monitor who comes and goes; cameras with the ability to see images clearly. In 2016, 100 cameras were installed.
Incidentally, the fight for gun control in the U.S. is our fight too. The majority of guns used in Toronto crimes originate in the U.S.
Weston Velo Club pays homage to our cycling heritage by bringing organized cycling back to the neighbourhood. 2018 is our inaugural season. Join us for group rides geared towards having fun and getting fit by participating in one of the most popular sports in Canada and around the world!
The Weston-Mount Dennis Community Place Hub is looking for advice on how it should be renovated. The Hub has helped 1765 Weston Road develop in recent years from a problem landlord to a model of community development.
Earlier this month, the Hub had a “collaborative design workshop focused on the renewal and transformation of the Weston Mount Dennis Community Place Hub and surrounding area.”
Mr. Murray, out of the goodness of your heart, do you voluntarily make extra property tax payments? I would hope so.
This letter came in reaction to an opinion in the article that the poor are suffering thanks to the needless austerity imposed by our low Toronto property taxes; the lowest in the GTA.
The whole point of taxation, especially progressive taxation is to make a collective effort to look after the needs of all citizens. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.”
Here in Toronto, a voluntary tax payment scheme was set up in 2011 at the height of the Ford mayoralty. No doubt the idea was to deflect pressure for higher taxes by saying, ‘If you’re so keen on higher taxes, pay more yourself’.
Do we really wish to go back to the days of voluntary contributions to pay for services? The days of unpaved streets, private education, private health care and fire companies who only fight their subscribers’ fires?
We’re all better off when we work as a cohesive society. If I believe that employers should pay a higher minimum wage, as an individual I can’t top up every wage packet but I can cheerfully pay any increased costs.
So, the answer is no, I don’t make voluntary contributions because they would be a drop in the bucket. The whole idea of taxation is that millions have agreed through the democratic process to pay a progressive and reasonable amount to provide services and infrastructure. If we are at the stage of relying on donations from property owners, then the tax structure isn’t working and should be changed so that they pay more.
The measure of a good society is how it treats its poorest citizens. Samuel Johnson put it well when he said,
“Where a great proportion of the people are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.”
Along the same lines, here’s a quote from Mayor Tory during a recent Inside Toronto interview with David Nickle. The Mayor in spite of regularly punishing the poor and homeless with austerity during his term, now astonishingly claims to be their saviour.
“What you come to realize is that really what you’re here to do … the people who are comfortable don’t need too much help from me,” he said. “It’s the people who are struggling who are most in need of better transit so they can get to a job situation that’s better for them, good housing so they’re not in substandard housing or living in a shelter. That’s when you realize that’s got to be your priority.” Mayor John Tory
Lord knows when this lightning bolt hit Mayor Tory but he seems blind to the fact that he helps the comfortable every day by ensuring that they pay the lowest property taxes in the GTA. He claims that the poor are his priority but his actions and voting record tell another story.
In fact, Canada has some way to go when it comes to public social spending.
From Twitter; @artsifton
Lastly and food for thought; one more quote from Johnson via his biographer:
What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. “And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths.”
