Community safety dominates race for Ward 24 council seat

Thestar.com
October 19, 2018
Gilbert Ngabo

At a recent community debate for council hopefuls trying to represent Scarborough-Guildwood at city hall, one candidate was wearing a shirt with a message supporting a ban on handguns.

It reminded area resident Dave Hardy of that sombre night six years ago when a gang-related confrontation escalated into a shooting at the Danzig St. party that left two dead and more than 20 injured. Hardy says there have been a number of shootings in the community over the past seven years, and he’d like to see politicians focus more attention to curbing such crimes, especially among youth.

Michelle Spencer, a council candidate for Scarborough-Guildwood, says she believes reducing crime is an “achievable goal.”

“After Danzig, a lot of community efforts went into saying, ‘We need a full stop here,’ ” Hardy said of community youth-oriented programs that were introduced into the Kingston-Galloway neighbourhood. Social workers, police enforcement and poverty reduction programs became “ubiquitous” in the community, he said, and “that has done an awful lot of good, giving youth a sense of identity and how to stay out of criminal activity.” He’d like to see such efforts on a consistent basis, not just after a tragedy.

Community safety has become a central topic in the hotly contested campaign for Ward 24, an amalgamation of what used to be Ward 38 and Ward 43. Nine candidates are vying to represent the new ward, which stretches from Morningside Rd. to McCowan-Bellamy-Markham, and from the shore of Lake Ontario all the way up to Hwy. 401.

Aside from fighting crime, all candidates’ platforms highlight affordable housing, improved public transit and increased community services as some of their key priorities.

It’s no coincidence that fighting violence figures prominently in their campaign promises. Data from Toronto police show there have been 20 shootings so far this year in the 43 Division -- which includes the larger part of Scarborough-Guildwood. Last year there were 22 incidents in the division, while there were only seven shooting occurrences in 2014, according to police data.

WARD WATCH
Ward 24 Scarborough-Guildwood

BOUNDARIES

Hwy. 401 to the north, Morningside Ave. to the east, the waterfront to the south, and McCowan Rd. to the west.

DEMOGRAPHICS

There are 102,386 people with an average age of 39.5. The average household is 2.8 people with a median household income of $57,694. The percentage of visible minorities is 70 per cent.

OTHER REPRESENTATIVES

MPP Mitzie Hunter (Liberal) and MP John McKay (Liberal).

Candidate Michelle Spencer says her “heart broke” when she heard about the shooting death of a 16-year-old near Eglinton Ave. E. and Bellamy Rd. last month,

“I believe his murder, along with many other acts of violence and crime, is preventable and that reducing crime is an achievable goal,” Spencer said.

Priyanth Nallaratnam, council candidate for Scarborough-Guildwood, said situational poverty is growing around neighbourhoods of Kingston-Galloway, Orton Park, Markham and Eglinton.

It should start with addressing the root causes of violence, she said, highlighting the need to tackle housing and food insecurity in the community. Spencer said that in pockets of Scarborough-Guildwood, some families spend half of their income on housing costs, while many young people live under the poverty line.

Keiosha Ross, another first-time candidate, agrees with the approach.

“Nobody wants to be surrounded by a crime-ridden environment, so let’s start by taking care of the youth, mothers and children born to mothers who are in poverty,” Ross said.

She proposes an urgent action plan that would increase community centres and bring various mentorship programs to youth, in order to keep them off the streets and help them get sustainable income, education and entertainment in a safe environment.

Incumbent Councillor Paul Ainslie is seeking reelection.
Longtime social worker and candidate Priyanth Nallaratnam, who grew up in social housing, points to the Scarborough Storefront project as a model of how to better take care of youth. He said situational poverty is growing around neighbourhoods of Kingston-Galloway, Orton Park, Markham and Eglinton.

“We need to expand our programs to reach into schools and give these kids the alternative to drugs and violence,” Nallaratnam said.

Incumbent Councillor Paul Ainslie, who is seeking reelection and has received endorsement from retiring Councillor Glen De Baeremaeker, said his old Scarborough East ward -- which is now part of Scarborough-Guildwood -- had one of the lowest crime rates in all of the GTA, and he’d like to keep it that way.

“We need to keep guns off our streets,” Ainslie said, touting a motion he introduced at city hall asking the province to mandate a regulation whereby all guns and ammunition seized by police are destroyed.

Ainslie said he wants to keep fighting youth unemployment, and one of his key projects in the area is the creation of a job skills training centre, which would be located at the at the now-closed Sir Robert L. Borden BTI School near Kingston Rd. and Lawrence Ave. E.

The centre would help make “economic development a priority in Scarborough, and keeping crime out,” he said.