Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Bill Blair hears Regent Park concerns and announces Firearm Legislation

By -

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Bill Blair and Toronto Centre MP Marci Ien, meets Regent Parkers to hear safety concerns and inform the community about Bill C-21.

On a cold night at 11:40 PM, on February 2nd, 2021, multiple gunshots were heard near Regent Park Boulevard and Dundas Street east, Toronto. Soon Toronto Police Cruisers were seen rushing towards a parking lot on Oak street between Sackville and Sumach street.

Four men in their 50s and 60s were sitting in a Golden Honda Accord, were sipping their warm coffee, when two unidentified men opened fire on the car. Three men were injured and one was unharmed. Out of the three, one victim is reported to had suffered life threatening injuries while other two had major injuries as well.

The deafening gunshots not only has shaken the community and has spread fear among the neighbourhood but has also mobilized a conversation around the issue of gun violence and the policies that have recently been considered under Canadian legislation on firearms.

Recently, in the wake of these shootings, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Bill Blair, and Toronto Centre MP Marci Ien met to discuss the issue and to updated the Regent Park community on what the government was doing to make Regent Park and other urban communities safer.

The Government of Canada has tabled a new legislation surrounding the control on gun violence and has introduced a buy-back for illegal weapons. Bill C-21 would also increase penalties for the smuggling and trafficking of weapons, provides clear restrictions on the use of illegal weapons, and hopes to eradicate the risks associated to legal firearms and the banned assault-style firearms.

Among the amendments in Bill C-21 the government proposes to:

combat intimate partner and gender-based violence, and self-harm by allowing people, such as concerned friends or relatives, to apply to the courts for the immediate removal of an individual's firearms, or to suspend and review an individual's license to own firearms;

help create safer communities by supporting municipalities that ban handguns through bylaws restricting storage and transportation in their jurisdictions;

give young people the opportunities and resources to avoid criminal behaviour by providing funding in the amount of $250 million over 5 years – starting in 2021-22 - to municipalities and Indigenous communities to support anti-gang programming and prevention programs for youth-at-risk.

From my perspective, the proposed legislation is a strategic attempt at providing safety measures to communities, and in protecting the vulnerable groups such as youth at risk. It serves as a framework to mitigate potential violence due to firearms and illegal weapons.

However, there is a greater opportunity in providing support to the community by running various awareness campaigns based on the legislation reforms proposing stiffer sentences for gun crime, creating social cohesion in the neighbourhood for the victims and vulnerable groups through well-planned physical and mental health activities and cultural events. Further, in my opinion it is very important to engage the youth using modern day tools of communication such as social media, and mobilizing influencers, bloggers and celebrity endorsements to support prevention initiatives.

The owners of weapons should also be engaged regularly, and monitored for their responsible utilization of weapons as there is a need for law enforcement agencies to continue a stricter regulation on weapon smuggling, and existing gun lobbies.

The Regent Park region has overcome many challenges over its history, and with support from community members and service provides, community policing initiatives and collaboration from all three levels of government, the neighbourhood will continue to thrive and be a safe place to live and raise families. 

 

Written by
Dawar Naeem

Journalist
FOCUS Media Arts Centre
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told...
Read more

What Social Inclusion Means to Me

By -
I had moved into Regent Park only a few days before I saw the pink, fuchsia, strawberry, indigo, yellow, green, neck streamers and sparkling robes worn by children, parents, aunts, uncles, and elders as they marched passed my kitchen door. Soon, the nearby Athletic Grounds was blazing with colour. Although it was the first time I heard them, the intonations on the microphone were recognizable, even to me, as prayers. It was Eid, the concluding celebration after Ramadan. It was a beautiful sight. I am a White Jewish senior and I hunted for a stairless condo for years before I chose to live in Regent Park and then only because a relative did business with the new seniors’ building there. “Regent Park?” a friend exclaimed. “You are going to have ethnic problems.”  “Not I.  I come from a long line of fiery leftie activists.” I replied. Stage four and five of revitalizing this post-war subsidized development into a multi-income community was just beginning and I ju...
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity...
Read more