“I ask the police chief about it every day … (the police) are hard at work,” Tory said Tuesday after another weekend of shootings. “And I expect you’ll see in the coming weeks more of these people brought in front of the justice system and taken off the streets.”
Tory, who spoke to media following the promotion of summer events in front of Union Station, said Police Chief Mark Saunders has made it clear that 90% of the gun incidents on city streets are related in some way to gang activity.
“It’s a combination of a whole bunch of things involving guns, and drugs and gang activity of all kinds, turf wars and retaliation and just stuff we have to take off our streets because there’s no place for it in the City of Toronto,” Tory said.
The mayor said he welcomes support by senior levels of government, including a direction to Crown attorneys to fight the release of anyone found to be armed and already on bail for a gun offence.
The federal government allocated hundreds of millions of dollars last year to fight gang activity in Canada, but the money has yet to trickle down to the municipal level, Tory said.
In the short term, the city is prepared to look at installing more street cameras and deploying more officers to troubled areas.
Another 200 Toronto Police recruits will join the service by year’s end, he added.
Governments also need to look at funding programs that have helped young people stay away from gang activities in the past, he said.
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