Why municipal elections are important

If you are one of those complacent Ontarians who shrugs off municipal elections as not worthy of your time, please read today's Sun editorial - Breaking the culture of silence. Those in Toronto need to pay special attention:

...The Falconer report calls for a trustee job description, training and a code of conduct specifying prohibited behaviours.

But that can't replace the good judgment and common sense which some (not all) trustees clearly lack.

Only voters can fix that, and right now few bother to vote in school board elections, meaning trustees rarely face serious challenges and can be re-elected largely on name recognition.

What the Falconer report indicates is that too many students are paying a high price for our apathy.

And that price is often their safety.

At a provincial level, please pay attention to the myopic words of Ontario Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, and the Sun's response:

"It's not my experience that there is an invasive culture of fear," she said.

With respect, if fear imposes silence, as the task force found, how would she necessarily have known?

Complacency and apathy come at a cost.

In the case of Jordan Manners, that price was too high - The life of a child.

* * * *

Update: Globe - Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence. Well, I sure glad we have our priorities straight!

...Jordan's mother, Laureen Small, is especially upset that a summary of the report was not given to her in advance, the lawyer said. Ms. Small found out about its contents from news stories yesterday.

Since Jordan's killing, Mr. Betty said, no one from the TDSB has contacted Ms. Small to express condolences...

( . . . )

"And we don't need to reinvent the wheel," said Constable Scott Mills, who runs Toronto's Crime Stoppers school program.

Constable Mills said he offered to speak to the Falconer panel, but none of its members got back to him.

( . . . )

"The reputation going around is: when you talk, you're basically a snitch," said student Chandé Wilmot. "[People worry] that they might get beat up."

Star - Falconer never asked us: No-shows.

I think I'd be seriously looking at home-schooling.

* * * *

Monday Update: Globe - School shooting victim's mother blames silence for death. H/T Halls of Macadamia.


Big News here! Jonathan Kay: How Julian Falconer got The Toronto Star to publish a completely bogus front-page story. Via Halls of Macadamia.

'Culture of fear'

Press conference now being televised re: Falconer report on violence in the classroom. (Link added Jan. 11)

Stories are emerging about a "Culture of fear" and silence, "Crisis of Confidence", and Toronto schools "plagued" with violence.

No doubt this topic will be a prime focus of pundits in tomorrow's MSM. Hopefully some of the recommendations will be considered and implemented.


In any case, let's get away from this attitude of willful blindness.

* * * *

Report available here.

More here - Drastic improvements needed to tackle school violence: Report - Post:

...As part of its investigation, but unrelated to the Manners death, the panel uncovered allegations that a Muslim female student had been sexually assaulted in a school washroom at C.W. Jeffreys, the previous year, but that the incident was not reported by school administrators...

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Friday Update: Lots of MSM reaction. I'll try to ferret out the best (IMO)


Sun Media - Listen to teachers on violence.

...if Toronto trustees are serious about tackling school violence, they can start by looking in the mirror.

National Post - Folly to tar all public schools:

...and the blame says the panel lies largely with the former Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris, a profoundly partisan shot at a government long out of office. This dig calls the motives and solutions proposed in the report into question....

Even the 'Red Star' seems to be urging the trustees to pull their heads out of the sand! - Ensure schools are safe for students.

Globe - Fears of career suicide stopped educators from reporting violence.


The War Room: MONEY WILL NOT MAKE OUR SCHOOLS SAFE.

Saturday Post - One-third of pupils at T.O. native school suspended.

Post - A distorted portrait of Toronto's schools.

Schools are places to learn, not to launch sentimental social experiments conceived by politically correct human rights luminaries.

Lingering questions

Trying to make sense of the Aqsa Parvez murder becomes even more difficult as time goes on.

Today's National Post describes the relationship between Aqsa and her parents through the eyes of the Tahir family, which had offered her a place to stay prior to Aqsa's death (Aqsa's last days):

...The Tahirs say that days after she moved in with them, Mr. and Ms. Parvez came over, and both families had a two hour meeting with Aqsa.

Her mother cried. Mr. Parvez calmly implored his daughter in Punjabi to tell him why she left and what he could do to bring her home. Aqsa barely spoke, except to say that she "just wanted change," according to Ms. Tahir. Privately Aqsa told her that she wanted "to get more out of life".

Mr. Parvez appeared to be relieved that his daughter was safe, said Ms. Tahir, and not alone on the street. He was content to see Aqsa living in a household that resembled his own, said Ms. Tahir, and told her to stay as long as she needed to. Aqsa asked if she could bring items from her house back, and he said they would arrange that "together."

"That's how he left," said Ms. Tahir, an immigration and paralegal consultant who immigrated from Pakistan 10 years ago.

But Aqsa, it seemed, was still searching for independence.

A few days after that first meeting, over coffee in Tim Hortons, Aqsa told her father that she wanted to live on her own, she wanted to go to school in the mornings and work in the evenings. Mr. Parvez offered to let her take over the basement. Aqsa said she would think about it...

( . . . )

Aqsa did not have a boyfriend, said Ms. Tahir, who expressed dismay at the "rumours" in the press, including speculation that it was conflict over wearing the hijab that triggered the alleged murder.

The Tahirs did not know of any dispute over Aqsa wearing a hijab and said that the older Parvez sisters did not always wear the head scarf.

By that account, you would think that all was sunshine and roses with this family - Just a small issue of teenage rebellion.

So exactly what went so horribly wrong when Aqsa went home to collect more clothes?

Something just doesn't add up here.

* * * *

Saturday Update: Michael Coren - Denial is sickening.

Sunday Update: Lorrie Goldstein - Murder elicits the extreme.

Moderate Muslim voices speak out - Updated

(Update at end)

Right beside the National Post's politically-correct editorial is a candid op-ed by Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan - The deadly face of Muslim Extremism.

Fatah and Hassan are members of the Muslim Canadian Congress, and have received death threats in the past for expressing their views.

They must feel that this message is worth the risk.

...If convicted, Aqsa's father and brother must be handed the strictest penalty available under the law. As for the imams and clergy of Canada's mosques, who constantly berate young women for not wearing the hijab or snub them for "violating Islam," they need to reflect on the consequences of their sermons.

Consider, as an example, the Montreal mosque that recently posted on its Web site a warning to the effect that if young girls took off their hijab, they could end up getting raped and having "illegitimate children." Other proffered risks included "Stresses, insecurity and suspicion in the minds of husbands" and "instigating young people to deviate towards the path of lust."

As if the threat of rape and the fear of illegitimate children were not enough, these pre-teen girls were told that if they took off their hijab, they would cease to be Muslims: "By removing your hijab, you have destroyed your faith. Islam means submission to Allah in all our actions." Little wonder then, that Canadian girls walk away from sports tournaments rather than remove their hijabs...

Fatah and Hassan suggest that this may put undue pressure on Muslim men to exert control over the women in their families:

Radical Muslim men consider themselves ultimately responsible for the conduct of the womenfolk. This outlook is rooted in a medieval ethos that treats women as nonpersons, unable to decide for themselves what they should wear, where they must go and what they must accomplish in life. If their conduct is seen as contravening this austere religious outlook, they are invariably subjected to abuse.

Today's Star discloses a disturbing tidbit that was alluded to in a Global newscast last night - that the brother may have had more to do with this than simply obstructing justice:

...Friends of the slain girl said Parvez's brother picked her up Monday morning from a bus stop, where she was waiting to go to school, and told her she'd better come home to get a change of clothes...

Yes, women from all different kinds of faith and cultural backgrounds have been the target of abuse and violence.

However, this does not excuse us from trying to consider all possible systemic causes of the tragedy, and focus on doing all we can to prevent this from happening again.

Anything less is an act of complicity.

* * * *

Update - Ont. man charged with killing daughter held in jail.

More family violence against women here.

CTV - Autopsy shows teen died from 'neck compression':

The United Nations estimates at least 5,000 women a year are killed for committing adultery, defying tradition, or for simply talking to the wrong man and thereby bringing shame upon relatives.

Exact numbers are impossible to know because the majority of such murders -- women are the main victims -- go unreported and the guilty unpunished.

United Muslim Women of Canada's Anisa Ali said the public shouldn't assume that honour killings only happen in the Muslim community.

Honour killings. Because the death of the female relative is preferable to the shame she would bring on the family if she were allowed to live...

Hard to comprehend.

* * * *

Thursday Update: Record - Local imams tackling domestic abuse.

Record - A Muslim teen dies, a nation asks why.

Barbara Kay - How Canada let Aqsa down.

Jack's Newswatch - Cynapse: Swift justice for Aqsa.

* * * *

Friday Update: CBC - Brother charged with obstruction after Brampton teen's death gets jail.

Muslim clerics denounce girl's death, but reiterate hijab's importance.

Toronto the Scary

It seems rather curious to me that a city that finds itself in a major financial crisis would continue to pander to the bleeding-heart lefties rather than face the grim reality that their misguided attitudes may very well hit them in the tourism column of their budget.

Today's National Post discusses the fatal stabbing of 32-year-old Toronto visitor Ross Hammond who was swarmed and attacked by four panhandlers when he had the audacity to refuse to give them their entitlements:

The death of Mr. Hammond is all the more tragic because the crime may well have been prevented if the City of Toronto had laws that clearly outlawed panhandlers, and directed police to keep city streets clear of anyone who harasses passers-by for money.

Instead, many of Toronto's city councillors seem more anxious about panhandlers' rights and feelings than those of their victims. (Councillor Howard Moscoe, for example, has declared that "people panhandling make us uncomfortable because they remind us of our failings.")

A City of Toronto document classifies panhandling as a "manifestation of poverty and need" instead of what it is -- an ugly, intimidating and sometimes violent nuisance.

According to the editorial, Vancouver is also afflicted with this 'myopic' attitude, and it is hurting business:

Convention contracts for hotels, some worth as much as $500,000, have been lost -- according to the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association -- because visitors don't believe Vancouver streets are safe. It's hard to blame folks for staying away: People won't visit a city if they are confronted by an army of deadbeats thrusting their hands out for coins.

I have no doubt that some cases of genuine need do exist in large cities, and they should be addressed.

However, tolerating panhandling is not just enabling a lifestyle of begging, but also putting citizens and tourists at risk.

Merchants in Toronto are now talking about a 'new breed' of panhandler:

"There was a time when panhandlers were homeless people who were asking for change. Now it's able-bodied young people who refuse to join the status quo and would rather bully you for change," said Marcus McLean, project co-ordinator for the West Queen West Business Improvement Area...

Toronto's response to increasing complaints about panhandlers is to do surveys - the classic left-wing solution to any annoying problem.

Perhaps when tourists start staying away in droves, Mayor Miller and his cheering section of ostriches will finally decide to remove the rose-coloured glasses and actually deal with the problem.


A Toronto Sun reader has no problem zeroing in on the hypocrisy of the politicians:

A young man was stabbed to death last week. A policeman was dragged to his death by thieves. Now a man is killed by pan-handlers, or in reality, armed robbers. Where is the outrage from Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant? Why are there no photo ops with grieving families by David Miller? Mr. Bryant's idiotic slogan. "No Gun, No Funeral" is sounding kind of empty right now, isn't it?

Pat Proulx

Almonte

Meanwhile another family prepares to bury a loved one; courtesy of Toronto the Good, while the city continues to ferment and rot.

* * * *

Related: BATB - Toronto, Clean up Your Act.

Mindelle Jacobs - Spare some change?

Interesting comments at this CTV link (H/T IndieScribe).

Wednesday Update: Globe - Accused panhandler has lengthy U.S. record.

And a totally predictable view from the Star here - Mistake to ban begging.

Again from the Star - Queen West an Area in Decline.

Christie cuts through the P.C. smokescreen

H/T to BATB at CBL for pointing out this gem by Christie Blatchford - Don't get deafened by the noise - do something.

Christie paints a picture of the very poignant scene that caught my eye as well on the news coverage - that of the line of children holding hands and being led away from the scene of the shooting of Ephraim Brown in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

When I saw that clip, I was trying to understand why children of that age would be up at that hour in the first place, much less wandering around outdoors in the dark during a very large and rowdy party.

The police had apparently been there earlier in the evening. Yesterday's Post carried an article in the print edition, "Police say accused has gang history"(Sorry I don't have the link):

"...Police visited the party at about 10 a.m. (typo), three hours before the shooting to ask the party-goers to turn down their music, said Alisha Pomnainville. As the night progressed, said Detective Sergeant Gary Giroux, strangers started blending int the party crowd. A dispute led to multiple shots being fired, one of which hit the 11-year-old in the neck..."

In an accompanying article, Pomnainville relates more of the story:

On Saturday night her five year-old, Jahqwan, went to the birthday party for his friend Jayshawn, who was turning seven. Two 18-year-olds celebrated their birthdays in the same home that night, and by 9 p.m. the crowd had grown to more than 100, she said.

"You could feel there was a bad mood in the air," she said. "All these young men were standing there looking at each other, and every boy had their hoodies on."

She grabbed her boy and went home; a few hours later shots rang out and another boy was dead.

So this mother correctly relied on her maternal instincts and common sense and got her youngster away from potential danger.

There were many warnings signs of problems before the tragic event occurred. Yet obviously many parents chose to turn a blind eye.

Blatchford, in her op-ed, describes the need to look at the many small parts of this disturbing puzzle that contribute to the overall problem. I would suggest that the mothers and any available fathers take a long, hard look at themselves first.

Yet there is so much noise, in the wake of Ephraim's slaying, that the temptation is to give up, do nothing, or in the more modern manner, parrot some of the noise and do nothing. The trick, rather, is to do a little and pray others do the same.

We'll all do our part, but I pray that the parents take responsibility as well.

* * * *

Related: From Lorrie Goldstein's Missing the target on gun crime:

...As he (Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz) noted in a recent parliamentary debate, of the 5,194 homicides in Canada between 1997 and 2005, 118, or 2.27% were committed with a registered gun, 63, or 1.21%, were committed with a gun registered to the accused murderer and 111, or 2.14%, were committed by a person who held a valid firearms licence.

Of Canada's two million licensed gun owners, 111, or 0.00555%, used their firearm to murder someone.

Since most criminals don't register their guns, why would they obey a "ban?"

On the other hand, in 2005, 64% of accused murderers had a prior criminal record, including 6% for homicide.

Gee, do you think the real problem here might be the criminals and an absurdly lax justice system?

* * * *

Jack really cuts through the politically-correct smokescreen here - Elected politicians and stupid games.

"Bad" Handguns

If you read the Star's editorial today (Ban handguns before more die), you'll see a small typo near the end of the piece which, if it hasn't been corrected yet, ironically illustrates the knee-jerk way this liberal op-ed must have been thrown together:

But the most pressing need in this struggle to control violence is a nationwide bad on handguns.

You can almost hear Bryant and Miller chanting in the background, "Bad handguns; bad!!!"

Michael Bryant seems to be on a mission to ferret out those nasty guns:

"We've got 215,000 (registered) handguns in Ontario alone and each one of them is a target for theft," Bryant said. "I say `no gun, no funeral,'" he added, referring to the deaths that have plagued Toronto in recent years.

And in a way, the Star's typo pretty much sums up the sole remedy of Miller and Bryant for this ongoing problem - Guns are bad. Therefore once we ban them, our problems are over. All those young people selling drugs and growing up in fatherless homes are going to suddenly see the light. It will be an amazing day. The city of Toronto will be shining with virtue and prosperity.

To its credit, today's Globe takes a more realistic view of the possible endemic causes (h/t Neo):

Toronto has undertaken a variety of useful responses: setting up four 18-member police squads that blitz high-crime areas on foot, creating extra social programs, and keeping schools open for summer programs. But the underlying problem of large, poor, fatherless families, alienated teens and a gangster culture transplanted in part from Jamaica is sinking its roots into Toronto, and will not soon let go.

Tough words, but they had to be said.

The question is, will Miller et al listen?

* * * *

Related: Exactly Right - Apparently it's guns that kill people; not criminals. (Interesting comment by one of Dave's readers, who says he owns several handguns).

Sandy - Don't change the subject! Pass the crime bills! One of Sandy's readers mentions a recent article by Licia Corbella. It's well worth the read.

Excellent post at Jack's Newswatch - The dumbest editorial the Star has produced in years!

* * * *

Wednesday Update: Lorrie Goldstein - Missing the target on gun crime. Well worth the read.

Sandy - Canada has a "criminal" control problem.

Did Political Correctness Kill Jordan Manners?

The Globe's Margaret Wente had a great column on Friday. In case you missed it, you can read the whole thing here (Our Safe-Schools Delusion).

It's a blunt, tell-it-like-it-is description of the sad plight of Toronto's inner-city schools, and how teachers are hamstrung to do much to improve the situation. They end up becoming babysitters rather than educators.

The main culprit seems to be an attitude of political correctness enforced by the Ontario Human Rights Commission:

..A few years ago, Toronto's school board was hauled before the Ontario Human Rights Commission for discriminating against minorities. Black activists and parents complained that the schools were handing out too many suspensions and expulsion orders. The rights commission agreed, and called for "alternative" approaches to discipline problems such as detentions and "peer mediation." Since then, the pressure to relax discipline has been intense, and the number of suspensions and expulsions has fallen dramatically. School trustee Gerri Gershon cites these figures as proof that the schools are making "progress." In fact, all they prove is the school administrators' desire to stay out of hot water, at whatever cost...

This reminds me of a recent study that found an over-representation of natives in prisons, etc. So is this all the result of racism or is it instead an inconvenient reality, which has more to do with culture and the results of voluntary apartheid-ism? (And yet it continues.)

...People on the front lines describe a fundamental disconnect between the politicians, the education bureaucrats, and many school trustees on one side, and the reality faced by the teachers on the other. The first group sees Jordan's killers and other youths with knives and guns as essentially innocent young people - "children, really," as Ms. Gershon so guilelessly puts it. The teachers see hardened thugs...

Apparently, one of those "children" that has been arrested for Jordan Manner's murder is a father. And so the cycle continues.

...The one thing the schools are not allowed to do is kick out the thugs. Instead, they wind up for a while in diversion programs, where they are babysat until they're recycled to a regular class. Ideally, of course, we'd have intensive behaviour programs to try to turn them around. So far, however, no school system in the world has been able to cough up the money and resources to do this...

Meantime, our well-meaning education-promoting Premier is about to make a sorry situation worse. He has decreed that from now on we will force students to stay in the system until they're 18, whether they like it or not. Instead of teaching the teachable, administrators will now be forced to spend countless hours attempting to track the whereabouts of sub-adults who can't be taught and have no desire to learn...

As I've stated before, I don't think there is one simple solution to this problem of violence in schools, and any politician who states anything to the contrary is not to be trusted.

Simply playing ostrich and pretending that certain problems don't exist is not going to make them go away. The actions of politicians who use tragedies like Jordan's murder to push a political agenda are particularly heinous.

We are again talking about the logical consequences of an attitude of willful blindness, and it is costing us dearly.

* * * *

Monday Update: ...And What is Happening in the Classroom?

Excellent insight at the Star - A Tale of Two Public Schools. Check out the video on the main page as well.

Lorne Gunter reads my mind

Lorne Gunter's column in today's Post, Blame Urban Culture; Not Urban Guns contains many of my thoughts from the last few days regarding the murder of young Jordan Manners; especially the way His Worship (in Gunter's words) blames Ottawa "for letting law-abiding citizens own handguns."

...Apparently, the problem couldn't be the prevalence of father-absent upbringings in the Jane-Finch area of Toronto, or the glorification of gangsta, drug and gun culture that liberals and social democrats such as Mr. Miller have been loathe to denounce out of a politically correct fear of being called racists.

Nor could it be the every-boy-a-good-boy approach to juvenile crime, also favoured by the Millers of the world, that has eliminated nearly all punishment for young offenders in favour of touchy-feely counselling that hardened young criminals -- such as those who would shoot down a student in the hallway of a high school--just scoff at.

It couldn't be the way courts have hamstrung police investigations or lefty city councils have pared back police budgets and reassigned beat patrol officers to traffic safety campaigns and police- minority relations teams.

Nope. If we follow Mayor Miller's logic, the only reason Jordan Manners is dead is the federal Conservatives' unwillingness to ban handguns...

Gunter's whole article is well worth the read. At the end of the column he highlights some interesting facts on gun control, demonstrating that it is dangerously naive of Miller et al to assume that tighter gun control would somehow be a magic bullet:

Since Britain implemented a near-complete ban on civilian handgun ownership a decade ago, handgun possession among criminals has soared by an estimated one million to three million guns, and handgun crime has almost tripled.

Why don't we start with a focus on handgun bans in schools, and actually have school boards back up the policy with practical measures and consequences?

Then let's talk about how we can deal with urban ghettos or "Apartheid-lite", as Lorne Goldstein refers to the problem.

To be sure, there are many issues that contribute to the type of situation found in the Jane-Finch areas of large urban centres in Canada. I don't believe that there is a simple root cause. But willful blindness is not going to help kids like Jordan Manners.

* * * *

Update - 'Friends' shot Jordan: Police.

Red Tory seems to be under the impression that I am a politician. He is accusing me of hypocrisy - It's the (Black) Culture, Stupid. The post is worth reading, BTW, if only for this great link from "Closet Liberal", Growing up without Men.

On second thought, don't waste your time (going to Red's, that is).

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Tuesday Update: From the Post - One of the accused is apparently a father. Yet he is protected under our Youth Criminal Justice Act. Somewhat ironic, isn't it?


Oh, and thanks to Red Tory for boosting my daily "page views" count to a record 765 yesterday!