With Toronto looking for a new police chief, now would be a good time for the candidates, the police services board and city council to explain what their plan is to address the explosion of gun violence on our streets.
In 2005, the city once known as “Toronto the Good” was badly shaken by what became known as the “Summer of the Gun,” in which there were 262 shootings and firearms discharges on our streets, with 215 victims injured or killed.
Last year, in what now passes for the “new normal” in Toronto, shootings and firearms discharges were up 88% (492) and the number of victims injured or killed up 32% (284) compared to 2005 — both at their highest levels in 16 years.
Despite the record levels of gun violence last year, shootings and firearms discharges so far this year are up 18% (234) compared to this time in 2019 (198). While the number of victims injured or killed is down 4% (107 vs 111), the number killed is up 33% (24 versus 18).
As alarming as these numbers are, they pale in comparison to what has happened on the streets of Toronto since 2014 when there were 177 shootings and firearms discharges and 103 victims injured or killed.
Last year, shootings and firearms discharges were up 178% (492) compared to 2014 (177) while the number of people injured or killed was up 176% (284) compared to 2014 (103).
These startling increases cannot be explained by population growth. The population of the Greater Toronto Area rose by only 5.9% between 2014 (5,797,000) and 2019 (6,139,000).
The year 2014 is significant because that was the year the number of police street checks (aka carding) was dramatically reduced (17,001 compared to 196,907 in 2013) before being scrapped in 2015 because of political concerns about systemic racism in the police service.
Here’s what happened in the next six years.
In 2015, the number of shootings and firearms discharges increased by 63% (288) compared to 2014 (177) while the number of victims injured or killed increased by 48% (152) compared to 2014 (103).
In 2016, the number of shootings and firearms discharges increased by 41% (407) compared to 2015 (288) while the number of victims injured or killed increased by 27% (193) compared to 2015 (152).
In 2017, the number of shootings and firearms discharges briefly decreased, dropping by 4% (392) compared to 2016 (407) while the number of victims injured or killed decreased by 3% (187) compared to 2016 (193).
In 2018, the number of shootings and firearms discharges increased by 9% (427) compared to 2017 (392) while the number of victims injured or killed increased by 22% (229) compared to 2017 (187).
In 2019 the number of shootings and firearms discharges increased by 15% (492) compared to 2018 (427) while the number of victims injured or killed increased by 24% (284) compared to 2018 (229).
While the number of people killed in shootings fluctuates annually due to a variety of factors and is not a reliable indicator of overall gun violence, even those numbers have steadily increased compared to 2014, with one exception.
In 2014 there were 27 people killed by gunfire in Toronto, 26 in 2015, 41 in 2016, 39 in 2017, 51 in 2018, 44 in 2019 and 24 this year, which is just three short of 2014 with more than five months to go.
Street checks, a key method of police intelligence gathering in order to combat increasing gang violence, were never supposed to be abandoned permanently.
The Liberal government of then Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne was supposed to introduce a new provincial regulation to govern the practice, but the one it produced in 2017 was so unrealistic — the judge who reviewed it described it as unworkable — that police checks were never revived.
We hear a lot of rhetoric from politicians today about defunding the police, addressing systemic racism in policing and funding long-term social programs to address the root causes of gun violence.
But we hear little — except for predictable lamentations when a particularly horrific shooting occurs — about what they plan to do now to address the steadily increasing gun violence on our streets in the absence of street checks.
Terrified of being accused of racism if they even mention carding, don’t hold your breath that they ever will.
Welcome to the new normal.
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