Next Stop…

It’s not what it used to be. That seems to be a common feeling among those of us who get to an age where we can compare decades with some clarity. Of course, we never remember things exactly as they were, as many of us filter the worst to make room for the better memories, even if we don’t realize it. In the case of ‘Toronto The Good’, there is much to cheer about, but I fear there is much that has gone downhill. I grew up in Toronto in the 70’s.

Our neighbourhood was Montrose, Shaw and Crawford area. We were all immigrants, surrounded by shops mostly of Italian and Portuguese heritage. We played outside until the street lights came on, (that was the common signal to go home for the day). We walked to school and just about everywhere else we needed to venture to. In a big place like Toronto, your neighbourhood was the city within the city. Rarely did we need to go outside its perimeter. As I got older, I wandered further out, towards the core, and that’s where I would see another reality. People living on the sidewalk, drunks harassing pedestrians and streets littered with garbage.
One memory that has always stuck with me was a time I was riding the bus, I must have been 16 or 17, and a guy got on, talking to himself and yelling at passengers. He was obviously an alcoholic. He made his way to the very back of the bus, (where I was sitting), muttered some unintelligible gibberish at me, and proceeded to slap me on the face. He got me just with the tips of his fingers because he couldn’t stand straight, but it was a shock to my system and scared the crap out of me. I just sat there, wondering what had just happened, and not long after, got off at my stop. Nothing of the sort had ever happened to me, nor has it happened since, but it was a dose of reality. In 1977 the brutal murder of 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques, a Portuguese boy who shined shoes on the Yonge Street strip sparked outcry from the entire population and reaction was swift from government and police. What they called at the time a “clean up” took place, especially on Yonge, with police closing down various establishments around the downtown core. In the 80’s, there seemed to be a renaissance of sorts, things downtown seemed to improve, and, somehow, we stopped seeing people living on the streets. The drunks and vagrants on Queen and on Yonge also seemed to vanish, although I have no idea exactly how.

When I last visited Toronto with my family, in 2015, walking along Queen Street, it was like Déjà vu, people spread out on the sidewalk, litter, all things that I thought belonged to Toronto’s past, but here they were again. I quickly came to my senses and realized that these are issues that every large urban center must deal with, but they’re issues that no one seems to have learned from, for here they are, front and center. I think that the violence seen today in Toronto stems from turning a blind eye to the reasons why these problems persist. Is it lack of funding? Police? That’s what either side is saying about the other. Police want more money; government wants more cooperation. Nobody wants to take responsibility, or even share responsibility. Everyone is to blame and everyone needs to rally together to resolve these and other issues that stem from the source. The paradigm needs to change and all that needs to be done is to seriously look at the mistakes of the last century to see what is wrong with the system. Again, the system is good for some and not for others. Our current model lacks the balance; to make some happy others must go without, and the ones without are greater in numbers.

A good friend of mine recently told me that the TTC riding experience has become almost surreal. He claims that the platforms are filled with what he calls “zombies”. I can only assume that there is much too much sadness and apprehension among the citizens of the city and politicians don’t seem to care much. It makes sense that among all these discontented people, a small minority may react in bizarre ways, most are harmless, but it doesn’t take many more serious incidents to instill panic among an already jittery public.

It may not be the only culprit, but I think the very mention of the word “cutback” should move the population to act. It’s been decades of cutbacks to programs that would not have existed if they weren’t necessary in the first place. I’m sure everyone wonders where all the money syphoned from their pockets ends up. I remember learning in school that the TTC was rated number one in the world of transit systems. Look at it now. I remember Mel Lastman calling Toronto a “world class city”. What is a world class city? If it has to do with tall buildings and fine dining, well then Toronto is right up there. What about the rest?
Fiquem bem

Raul Freitas/MS