Why gun violence in Toronto keeps getting worse

The simplest way to illustrate skyrocketing gun violence in Toronto since police street checks — aka carding– were banned and the service’s Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) was gutted, is this.

After Toronto’s “Summer of the Gun” in 2005, when TAVIS was created and street checks were ramped up, and 2014, when both initiatives were dramatically cut back prior to being scrapped, shootings in Toronto dropped by 32% from 262 in 2005 to 177 in 2014.

During the same period, the number of people wounded and killed in these shootings dropped by 55%, from 231 in 2005 to 103 in 2014.

But since 2014, after which street checks were abandoned and TAVIS’ funding was cut in 2015 before being disbanded in early 2017, shootings increased by 178% between 2014 and 2019, from 177 in 2014 to 492 last year.

Injuries and deaths from shootings increased 176%, from 103 in 2014 to 284 last year.

So far this year (as of Aug. 29), shootings are up 16% from last year’s record pace to 335, compared to 290 last year.

The number of people injured and killed is down 5% from this time last year, (157 vs 166) but deaths are up 13% (27 vs 24).

In 2014, gun violence in Toronto was its lowest level since police began compiling comparable data in 2004.

Gun violence today is at its highest level since 2004.

Correlation isn’t causation. Because two things happen simultaneously doesn’t automatically mean one caused the other.

There are also other factors that impact annual gun violence rates aside from the presence or absence of street checks and TAVIS.

But the logical conclusion from these statistics is supported by numerous police officers, active and retired, on and off the record, who explain that since street checks and TAVIS were abandoned, gang members are no longer afraid of carrying guns everywhere they go, which translates into ever-escalating rates of gun violence.

The architect of the street check/TAVIS strategy, then Toronto police chief Bill Blair, now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s public safety minister, defended them as effective methods of proactive policing, helping police to solve and prevent crimes, rather than simply respond to them after the fact, during his 10-year tenure as chief from 2005 to 2015.

Mayor John Tory, city council, the police services board, former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne and current Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford, who all oppose restoring street checks and TAVIS, have never offered any alternative explanation for these statistics.

It’s not because of population growth.

A 5.9% increase in the population of the Greater Toronto Area from 2014 to 2019 doesn’t explain a 178% increase in shootings and a 176% increase in injuries and deaths during the same period.

We all know what’s really happened here.

The powers that be are terrified of being accused of racism by anti-police activists if they propose any form of restoring street checks or TAVIS which would be effective, given that the current provincial regulation governing street checks is unworkable according to the judge who reviewed it for the province.

The question isn’t how many more people in Toronto have to be terrorized, wounded and murdered by escalating gun violence before the powers that be bring back TAVIS and street checks, with proper controls to protect civil liberties, because the answer is no matter how bad it gets, they won’t.

And that’s a disgrace.

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