History of the Toronto Police Part 2 (1850-1859)

History of the Toronto Police PART 2
TORONTO POLICE IN THE 1850s
The Gangs of Toronto and the Call For Reform

Downtown Toronto 1857 — Looking North Up York Street from King to Osgood Hall at Queen Street

The political dynamics of Toronto of the 1850s were radically different from those of the 1830s. The old Family Compact-Tory-Reform issues had faded in the 1840s, despite the occasional flare-ups like the Rebellion Losses Bill riots. Mackenzie, once a fugitive from the hangman, had returned to Toronto and lived out the rest of his life in relatively docile retirement on Bond Street. Change in Toronto began to take a form beyond the context of municipal partisan politics.

Toronto essentially remained a large trading village until 1850. But with British abandonment of colonial trade protection policies and the collapse of the imperial trading route through Montreal and the St. Lawrence, Toronto found itself looking towards the Erie Canal and New York. In 1853 the first railroad in Toronto went into service. By 1856 there were three railways and Toronto was connected to the US networks. The mere existence of the railways lead to a huge manufacturing industry for rails, railway stock and engines, apart from the rise of factories manufacturing goods to put on those trains.[1]

The ethnic balance within Toronto’s mostly British stock was destabilized by the 1850s. The population of Toronto swelled from 23,000 in 1848 to 30,000 by 1850 as a result of mostly Irish Catholic peasant refugees escaping the ongoing famine.[2] The new Irish presence was not warmly welcomed in Toronto. The Reformer George Brown, founding editor of the Globe, did not disguise his contempt for the Irish:

Irish beggars are to be met everywhere, and they are as ignorant and vicious as they are poor. They are lazy, improvident and unthankful; they fill our poorhouses and our prisons, and are as brutish in their superstition as Hindus.[3]

Many arrived in Toronto under the most horrendous circumstances, and Toronto authorities did everything possible that they not remain in the city. Larratt Smith, a rising young city lawyer wrote his relatives back in England about the Irish immigrants in Toronto:

They arrive here to the extent of about 300 to 600 by any steamer. The sick are immediately sent to the hospital which had been given up to them entirely and the healthy are fed and allowed to occupy the Immigrant Sheds for 24 hours; at the expiration of this time, they are obliged to keep moving, their rations are stopped and if they are found begging are imprisoned at once. Means of conveyance are provided by the Corporation to take them off at once to the country, and they are accordingly carried off “willy nilly” some 16 or 20 miles, North, South, East & West and quickly put down, leaving the country to support them by giving them employment…John Gamble advertised for 50 for the Vaughn plank road, and hardly were the placards out, than the Corporation bundled 500 out and set them down…The hospitals contain over 600 and besides the sick and convalescent, we have hundreds of widows and orphans to provide for. [4]

From 1841 to 1848 the percentage of Catholics in Toronto rose from 17 to 25 percent. The new Irish immigrants were a tougher and more volatile people, hardened by the brutal life they experienced in Ireland. They were the source of some of Upper Canada’s first violent labour unrest, rioting on the Welland Canal dig where many were employed at a subsistence wage.[5] Some of the first big mob sectarian clashes in Ontario between the Protestant Orange and Catholic Green unfolded in the Niagara region around the canal construction during the 1840s.[6]
As Toronto began to gradually nudge its way towards industrialization, many of the new Irish immigrants began to settle in the city seeking out unskilled employment. Although these types of statistics are not available for the early 1850s, those nearing the end of the decade and early 1860s give us a glimpse of Irish urbanization. According to a Toronto Catholic Archdiocese census in the early 1860s, forty-five percent of Toronto’s Catholics were unskilled labourers.[7] The Irish, both Catholic and Protestant, also represented 67.3 percent of all arrests in 1858.[8] Irish women, in 1860, corresponded to 84.4 percent of all female arrests, despite the fact that Irish composed a little over 25 percent of Toronto’s total population.[9]

Parallel to this, we begin to see emerging riots and clashes between Orange Protestant and Green Catholic factions increasingly displace the old Reformer vs. Tory brawls. Between 1852 and 1858, six major riots between Protestant and Catholic militants unfolded in Toronto.[10] The city’s Orange-dominated constabulary was of little help in quelling these disorders with any semblance of impartiality.

The 1850s would witness the first union organizing of unskilled workers as well as increasing militancy from skilled trade unions in the face of increasing mechanization and deskilling in manufacturing.[11] In Toronto there were at least fourteen strikes between 1852-1854, a level of labour militancy not to be seen again until the 1870s.[12] The news filtering back to Toronto of riots and revolutions throughout almost all of Europe in 1848, in which monarchies and governments fell, must have made local authorities contemplate the efficiency of the Toronto Police.
The nature of poverty was also beginning to change. Previously impoverished peoples were migratory and seasonal.[13] With industrialization they were now becoming permanently settled in increasingly densely populated quarters of the city like Macaulaytown in Toronto’s St. John’s Ward.[14]

Not only had the nature of the poor changed, but the nature of the wealthy and those in between as well. The rise of industrial manufacturing in Toronto created not only a new wealthy class, but also a larger property-owning middle-class, eligible to vote. The introduction of omnibuses in the late 1840s, and later street railways in 1860, segregated Toronto into neighborhoods by income and inevitably by class. The perceived threat to Toronto’s middle-class property owners was gradually being shifted from that of spontaneous riots, rebellions, and occasional external incursions, to a more permanent and geographically fixed source from within the city, whose identification gradually began to shift from ethnic to one of class; a focus on the threat from “dangerous classes” of unskilled working poor and destitute unemployed.

Toronto was going to need something more than the type of English parish watch it currently had for a Police Force. The conditions in Toronto during the 1850s began to resemble more those of highly urbanized London, England in the 1830s when the London Metropolitan Police was founded. There was a gradually growing middle-class consensus in Toronto that began to place police reform on a higher priority than Toronto’s political autonomy from the Province. This was clearly being felt in the chambers of the Toronto City Council.

In 1850, City Council debated the viability of establishing a nightwatch no less than five times, but postponed any final decision.[15] There is some evidence, that like in Detroit, downtown businesses in Toronto were beginning to finance their own private nightwatch.[16] City Council debated appointing that watch as special constables and paying them a municipal salary.[17]

The need also to extend the constable’s individual powers was evident as City Council called on:
A law to extend the power of Constable in making arrests of parties guilty of breaking the peace on the authority of persons not magistrates who shall give the constables sureties to appear and prosecute the accused parties before the police magistrates.[18]

The City wanted police magistrates to be granted:

Powers to suppress bawdy houses and to register Gambling Houses.

Power to make byelaws [sic] for the purpose of regulating Boarding houses and for the summary punishment of Tavern and Boarding House proprietors who may be guilty of Fraud or imposition on Immigrants or Travellers.

A Law to punish persons for using grossly insulting language calculated to provoke breaches of the peace.[19]

The nature of these desired measures, indicate that there was a broadly based concern with public order.

Individual identification numbers were issued for the first time to be worn by constables on hats and collars.[20] By 1855, the Toronto Police exceeded fifty constables and by 1857 there would be six sergeants as well, supervising the force across the two divisions into which the city was divided.[21]
Rare view of Toronto looking east along King Street from Yonge Street. Circa. 1860 – US Civil War Era.

On the left in the distance one can see the roof of the second St. James Cathedral (1850), which
burned down in 1849 and would not get back its familiar tower and spire until 1874.
Some of the old problems addressed in the 1841 Provincial Commission were still plaguing the Toronto Police. Constables now prohibited from holding liquor licenses, were instead registering them under family member’s or friend’s names.[22]

It would be two riots in the summer of 1855 that would expose the Toronto Police to unanimous condemnation in Toronto and illustrate just how far the new industrial middle-class consensus had replaced the old Orange municipal solidarity in the Toronto City Council as far as it came to the Alderman-appointed constables. Ironically, neither of the two riots—the Firemen’s Riot or the Circus Riot, were sectarian in their causes.

Toronto’s Fire department was composed entirely of volunteers, who combined their firefighting activities with social and club activities—sort of like weekend sports teams.[23] On June 29, 1855, a fire broke out on Church Street, and two different firefighting companies responded. Colliding with each other as they attempted to extinguish the fire, it was not long before the competitive firemen dropped their hoses and began to fight. A squad of Toronto constables swooped down to separate the brawling firefighters, who then together turned on the police officers and gave them a thorough beating. In the heat of the moment, the constables ended up charging the firemen with assault.
Toronto Firemen from Firehall No. 11 at Yorkville Avenue (circa 1880)
Like the police force, most of Toronto’s firefighters, were also members of the Orange Order. When the matter came to trial, the Toronto constables had second thoughts about the charges they laid against their fellow Orangemen, and had to be forced into court to testify against their fellow-Orangemen. Once on the stand, the constables deliberately confused their testimony. Reform newspapers the time, practically howled with indignation. The Globe reported that “it is plainly asserted by those who have access to the best information that during the days which have been allowed to elapse since the fire, a compromise has been effected between the constables and the firemen, who are too much birds of a feather long to differ.”[24] The Examiner denounced the event as “Utterly disgraceful to the administration of civic justice, this case demands the reconstruction of the police force which thus proves itself utterly corrupt.”[25]

Few weeks later on July 13, 1855 both the firemen and police officers, were implicated together in the Toronto Circus Riot. A circus came to town from the USA. That night, clowns from the circus visited a King Street bordello and got into a brawl with some local citizens. The clowns got the upper hand, seriously injuring two Toronto patrons, who were also members of the Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company. The next day, a crowd of rowdy locals gathered at the circus, and attempted to pull the tent down. At first the circus people held off the crowd but soon the Hook and Ladder Company arrived, and with their company wagon, pulled the tent down and the circus was overrun. The clowns escaped, but circus wagons were overturned and set fire to by the firemen. The Toronto police in the meantime stood by and watched without interfering. Only when the Mayor called the army out, was the rioting halted. Again, the Toronto Police came under severe criticism when 17 of the rioters were arraigned in court but not one constable could remember seeing the accused at the scene. The Globe complained, “There are three classes in the city which thoroughly understand one another as hale fellows well met—the innkeeper, the firemen, and the police. These classes are fed by the Orange Lodges.”[26]
Corner of King and Yonge Streets (1868)
On the 17th of March 1858, there was rioting again between Orange and Green factions on the occasion of a St. Patrick’s procession resulting in a stabbing death. This time it was Chief of Police Samuel Sherwood who refused to testify against a fellow Orangeman implicated in the violence.[27] Chief Sherwood further deepened the dissatisfaction with Toronto’s police system when in the October of 1858 he unilaterally released a prisoner accused of bank robbery. Mayor Boulton demanded the resignation of the Chief but City Council refused to support it. Boulton resigned in protest in November.[28]

In the next election, a Reform candidate, Adam Wilson was elected—the first Reformer to be chosen to the Mayor’s office in two decades. In the previous year, George Brown was elected to the Provincial assembly on a Reform ticket as well. The legislative climate was right for the enactment of police reform in Toronto and in 1858, the legislature of Upper Canada enacted the Municipal Institutions of Upper Canada Act, Section 374 of which provided that in each of the five cities in the colony there was to be a Board of Commissioners of Police. Section 379 provided that “The Constables shall obey all the lawful directions, and be subject to the government of the Board…”[29] This section was gradually expanded to include other municipalities in the province and is still today the effective regulatory system for municipal police departments in Ontario.

Historians have broadly painted the enactment of the Municipal Institutions Act as an imposition of a Police Board regulatory system by the Province upon a corrupt Toronto City Council attempting to cling to its power over the city’s police.[30] City Council minutes tell a different story.
In the wake of the Circus Riots a committee of Toronto Aldermen reviewed the conduct of the police. In the twenty previous years of collective misbehavior by Toronto’s constabulary, City Council rarely censured the police constables its Aldermen had nominated and appointed to the force. By 1855 the attitude was much different:

The Committee of Council having carefully considered the whole of the evidence brought before them relating to the conduct of the Police Force at the late disgraceful riot on the Fair Green on the night of the 13th instant are unanimously of opinion:

That the Force did not act on that occasion in a prompt and energetic manner, which might have been expected from any well regulated constabulary but on the contrary displayed an utter [lack] of efficiency and discipline.

The committee are further of opinion that an entire change should at once be made in the organization of the Force…

It must be evident to everyone who had had an opportunity of perusing the evidence that there is at present an entire absence of any system of organization or discipline in the Police…
The committee are decidedly of opinion that the present mode of appointing the Police is highly objectionable and that the power of appointment ought not to continue to be vested in an elective body like the Council.

First, because it is necessarily more or less liable to this abuse that private or political considerations may have more weight in the appointment of the men than their individual fitness for the Office.
Secondly, Because it is hardly possible that any committee of the Council can or will make that vigorous investigation into the previous character and the physical or moral qualifications of the various applicants, which could and would be made by parties independent of popular control and who would be held personally responsible for their choice.

The Committee also most strongly recommend that for the future the power of appointing and dismissing the members of the Police Force should be vested absolutely in the Police Magistrate, the Recorder and the Chief of Police.[31]

In the meantime, the Province in 1856 began to consider legislation for a province-wide police force of 350 constables to be controlled by government-appointed police commissioner and two-thirds paid for by the municipalities to replace the local constabularies.[32] Mackenzie’s Weekly Message warned that the bill was a “new dodge of a Roman Catholic Police from Lower Canada to take the place of our Protestant police.”[33] The bill was abandoned, however, in May after a ministerial crisis and the resignation of Premier Allen MacNab.

City Council in the meanwhile had petitioned at the same time the Provincial Assembly to instead, “Amend the Municipal law (12 Vic Chapter 81 Sec 47) so as to place the appointment and dismissal of all the Police Force of Cities except the Chief Constable in a Board to be composed of the Mayor, Recorder and Police Magistrate.”[34]

The Province finally enacted the necessary amendments in 1858, while Toronto City Council unilaterally made several different attempts at forming a Board of Police Commissioners on its own starting in 1857.[35]

In December 1858, the Provincially sanctioned Toronto Board of Commissioners sat down for the first time and began to make plans as to how to replace the constabulary with a new police force. On February 8, 1859 the entire force from the Chief down to constable was dismissed and a new one took its place the next day. Only twenty-four of the old constables would be rehired on the new force of fifty-one men and seven NCO’s.[36] Toronto’s current police department today traces its regulatory and institutional lineage directly to the 1859 department and regulatory structure governing it.
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History of the Toronto Police, Part 1 (1834-1860)

TORONTO POLICE IN 1834 – 1860  PART 1
 “Formidable Engines of Oppression”

In 1834, when Toronto was incorporated officially as a city, most Torontonians lived and worked between the Don River on the east, and Bathurst Street on the west.  The lake was a closer to the city—the shoreline was where the Esplanade is today and Queen Street on the north, was roughly where Toronto ended.  The population of Toronto at its founding was 9,200, and there were 78 licensed taverns, about 1 per every 120 men, women, and children residing in Toronto.[1] In other words, the city had not yet earned its reputation as the puritan and sober, “Toronto the Good.”

King Street looking West from Jarvis circa 1845 — oil painting by John Gillespie
Although Toronto was ostensibly racially homogeneous, composed of a common English, Scottish and Irish ancestry, its population was nonetheless divided along class, religious and ultimately ethnic lines.  Power and politics in colonial Upper Canada, was dominated by a mostly English elite, consisting of representatives of the Crown, government officials and clerks, doctors, architects, bankers, financial officers, teachers, military officers and engineers.  Almost all the powerful English were Anglicans.  Where one prayed, often reflected how one earned his income.  The men who met each other in the boardrooms of the Bank of Upper Canada, tended to worship together at the Church of St. James on the corners of Church and King Streets.[2]

In the simplified model of Toronto’s ethnic composition, the Scottish come next, often representing leading merchants, future manufactures, and publishers—the middle classes of varying wealth
It was the flood of Irish immigrants that was going to put a crack in the placid Toronto status quo.  The Irish arrived bitterly divided amongst themselves into Protestant and Catholic camps—and that was before the potato blight made its contribution to the divisions and spilled millions of rural Irish immigrants into the cities of North America.

Added to this volatile mixture in Toronto, would be the figure of the Orange Irish constable.
When it was first incorporated in 1834, the City of Toronto, referred to back then as “the Corporation”, was run as a small oligarchy of local politicians—the Family Compact. It was like a ‘city-state’ within the confines of Upper Canada, almost in the Italian Renaissance-era tradition.  The Mayor and Toronto Aldermen, held the positions of Magistrates along with their elected office and commanded the absolute personal loyalty of the Toronto Police.  In 1841, a Provincial Commission of Inquiry into politics in Toronto, would report:

We have carefully perused the enactments under which the City of Toronto was originally incorporated… and we find the power thereby conferred on the Civil Magistrates, the very use of which by men of any class, party, or persuasion, could hardly be other than an abuse.  The Corporation combines within itself, Legislative, Judicial and Executive functions.  It appoints its own officers, remunerates them at discretion, and discharges them at will.  It makes its own by-laws, enforces the same by its own Police, and executes them through its own tribunals…  In all these cases, the City Police or the City Officers appear to be so closely identified with the Magistrates on the Bench, and the whole machinery of justice so completely monopolized in the same hands, that it would be impossible for the most immaculate body of men in the capacity of Magistrates, to avoid imputations engendered by the doubts, the cavils, and the want of confidence which such a system must infallibly entail.[3]

Toronto City Council retained for itself the formidable power to hire Toronto police officers.  Each Alderman had the right to appoint a number of constables in his ward, resulting in a police force hired entirely through a system of political favours.  The Toronto police force was partisan, corrupt, and inept.  There were no standards of recruitment and no training, and even though uniforms were first issued in 1837, one contemporary recalled that the Toronto Police was “without uniformity, except in one respect—they were uniformly slovenly.”[4]

On March 9, 1835, Toronto retained five fulltime constables—a ratio of about one officer for every 1,850 citizens.[5] Their daily pay was set at 5 shillings for day duty and 7 shillings, 6 pence for night duty—a substantial raise to the 2/6 paid previously to constable conscripts.[6] Constables were appointed for a duration of one year, coinciding with the term of office of the alderman nominating them.   The constables’ annual pay was fixed at £75 per annum in 1837, a lucrative City position when compared to the Toronto Mayor’s annual pay of  £250.[7]

In 1837 there was a rebellion in Toronto led by the city’s former mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie.   There are no historical records that reveal what role the Toronto Police played in the suppression of the rebellion which was confronted by the militia while Toronto’s garrison was dealing with events in Kingston.  Nonetheless, it is one of those historical paradoxes, that while the rebellion has been unfairly and so far universally dismissed by historians as a farcical comedic opera, its effect would resonate on politics and Toronto police policy for more than a decade to come.  It would position the Toronto Police as a touchstone of the struggle between the Provincial-Municipal jurisdictions over the security within the confines of Toronto.

The nature of this jurisdictional conflict became quickly visible when in October 1838, a force of 500 rebels with American supporters launched an incursion into Upper Canada at the Detroit-Windsor frontier.   The Lieutenant Governor, speaking for the Province, asked the Mayor to convey a message to Toronto’s City Council that there was “an imminent danger of an immediate invasion of this Province and an attack upon this City by the Rebels and Pirates”.[8] The Mayor told the Council:

I am commanded by His Excellency the Lt Governor to communicate to you that in consequence of information of a conspiracy to invade this Province entered into by a numerous body of foreign Brigands, His Excellency had thought it right to take immediate steps for the protection of the City in anticipation of the employment and organization of an adequate Militia force.[9]

Toronto’s Aldermen rejected any Provincial role in organizing its citizens for the defense of Toronto, and responded to the Province:

In the opinion of this Council the most effective mode of seconding the views of the Provincial Government in protecting the city from the consequences of any attack which may be apprehended from the foreign Brigands alluded to in the Communications from His Excellency the Lt Gov to the Mayor yesterday date, will be to increase the strength of the Police force of this City and that therefore ten extra police Constables be forthwith appointed by this Council and that the City Magistrates immediately prepare a code of instructions for the government and guidance of said Police force.[10]

With a kind of one-upmanship, the Province responded to the City directly, offering to pay for an additional twelve constables in Toronto, but not without first pointing out the inadequacies of the Toronto Police, and advising the City that the Province via the Lieutenant Governor should approve the new constables:

The Council [Provincial Executive] are fully aware of the necessity which exists for an augmentation of the Police for the City, which at present appears inadequate as well for the purpose of discovering and defeating the machinations of the enemy without the active intervention of the Military…
The Council therefore respectfully recommend to your Excellency to communicate to the Mayor of Toronto that should the City Council think fit to appoint twelve additional Constables, to be employed for such period as Your Excellency may deem necessary, Your Excellency will engage that the necessary increased expenditure will be defrayed by the Government.

The Council would feel pleased if the City Council previous to making the appointments finally would communicate the names of the proposed constables for your Excellency’s approval.[11]
Toronto’s cagey alderman did not take long to both accept the offer while at the same time bristling at and rejecting the Province’s attempt to regulate the appointment of the constables.  Toronto City Council:

Resolved that this Council relying with every confidence upon the exertions of the Government to protect the public peace and ensure the safety of this Province are induced to believe that it is necessary that this City should be furnished with a Police force greater than in ordinary times would be required.

The Council heartily approve of the prompt manner in which the Government have offered to defray the expenses of twelve additional Constables, but relying as they do upon the zeal of the Mayor and Alderman of the City under any circumstances, while on the one hand they express their thanks to the Government for their liberal offer of Twelve additional Constables, which they accept, they conceive that any change in the present system of Police regulations which would interfere with the duties of the Mayor and Aldermen would be inexpedient as well as an infringement of the Act of Incorporation.[12]

The Rebellion of 1837 and the subsequent incursion at Windsor in 1838, would transform the Toronto City Police into a strategic objective in the struggle between the Province and the Municipality.  Any “infringement of the Act of Incorporation” by the Province was to be staunchly beaten back by the City for decades.  Furthermore, the Rebellion gave a context to the Toronto Police as a defensive force against rebellious external enemies.   Later, as we shall see, this function would be refocused towards what were to be perceived as potentially rebellious forces from within the community.  Crime fighting itself, was low on the agenda of perceived functions for the Toronto police.
Two principle political factions fought for power in Toronto during this time:  the Tories, who represented the entrenched old establishment, and the Reformers, who represented the rising new middle class establishment.  Making things more complicated, was the growing presence of a powerful secret society in Toronto:  the Orange Order, an ultra-Protestant movement born in the conquest of Ireland and the ensuing conflict between Catholic and Protestant there.  Its pro-England, proud trinity of crown, empire, and Protestantism, provided its members an ideological tradition that was reformulated in the context of local Toronto issues.[13]

There were at least twenty-six riots in Toronto between 1839 and 1860.  Almost all of these riots involved the Orange Order in some manner.[14] The Toronto Police constables, of which at least half were members of the Order, and all of whom were appointed by mainly Orange supported politicians, would act in not only in favour of the Orange factions in these riots, but sometimes participated in the riots as offenders as well.[15]
Making matters worse, incumbent Tory politicians were routinely using the Toronto Police as a private army to suppress their opposition Reform candidates.  In October 1839, Toronto constables were marshaled to break up a Reformist meeting at ‘Davis’s Temperance Tavern.’ [16] In December 1840, the Reformist paper Examiner trumpeted, “The reign of the present corporation is emphatically one of terror.”[17] A meeting of a Reformer candidate and supporters at a tavern on Yonge Street was cancelled when Toronto constables, reinforced with “specials” armed with clubs, occupied the tavern and dispersed the meeting.[18] In the following years, numerous legal political meetings and Reformer rallies were violently broken up by the Toronto Police, on orders from incumbent Aldermen.  Toronto Police constables would be personally transported in wagons by Tory aldermen at the reins, and set loose to attack Reform candidate meetings.[19] The incumbent aldermen had personally nominated each of those Toronto constables to his post.

It was in March 1841, when election violence in Toronto would finally spark a Provincial inquiry into the City and its police.  At that time, the Mayor and Chief Magistrate of Toronto was George Monro, a wholesaler, a Tory pew holder at St. James Cathedral, a director in several banks in Upper Canada, and a member of the Orange Order.  When Provincial elections were declared, Monro and a compatriot, Henry Sherwood, ran on a Tory ticket for the Toronto seats in the new Parliament.  The weight of the Orange Order and the Corporation city machinery was thrown in behind their campaign.  To everyone’s surprise however, they lost to the Reform ticket of Dunn and Buchanan.
The day after the election, the Dunn-Buchanan faction decided to stage a victory parade down Church Street, and past the defeated Mayor Monro’s offices in the City Hall which stood on King Street near Church at the time.  Near the corner of Church and King, was the Coleraine Tavern, which during the election was kept as an ‘open house’ for Monro’s faction.  Several Orange Order Lodges also held their weekly meetings in the Coleraine.  Witnesses testifying before the Provincial Commission stated that they saw a group of strangers armed with knives, sticks, and various firearms going in and out of the tavern on the morning of the parade.  The investigation later identified these men as members of the Orange Order in Scarborough, brought over in a wagon that morning by the owner of the tavern under the instructions of Samuel Sherwood, Henry’s brother.[20] (We will encounter Samuel again shortly.)

All this was occurring some eighty yards away from Mayor Monro’s office.  Several witnesses testified that they ran to Monro asking him to send some constables to the parade route, and for him to go to the Coleraine and calm his supporters down.  Monro refused and kept twelve of the twenty special constables hired that day, positioned inside the City Hall.  The remaining eight were not to be seen anywhere.[21]

As the parade began to make its way past the Coleraine Tavern it was attacked by rocks and bottles thrown by Monro supporters from inside.  Eventually the parade halted and began to threaten to attack the tavern.  At that point, a shot was fired from a tavern window, and one of the Dunn-Buchanan supporters was killed.  Troops were called out to restore order while the murderer was never identified and the Toronto Police remained conspicuously absent.  Charles Dickens who was visiting Toronto during this period later wrote of the events:

One man was killed on the same occasion and from the very window whence he received his death, the very flag which shielded his murderer (not only in the commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was displayed again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the Governor General, to which I have just adverted.  Of all the colours in the rainbow, there is but one which could be so employed:  I need not say that the flag was orange.[22]

In their report later that year, the Provincial Commission investigating the events and the administration of Toronto began by highly criticizing the efficiency in general of the Toronto Police:

The City of Toronto possesses no Night Watch.  The necessity for such an institution is obvious.  Within the last 3 weeks, one burglary and robbery to the amount of 1000 pounds has been committed.  This burglary was effected in a house immediately opposite to the Police Office, and an iron chest containing the money, removed without observation or subsequent detection.[23]

In defense of the Corporation, Charles Daly, the Clerk of the Peace, responded to the accusations.  He proceeded to point out that fighting crime was not the main function of the Toronto Police:
It is not their duty as Constables to detect infractions of the Provincial or Civic Laws, or to lay information on breaches of the same.  If they witnessed any such infraction, they would be duty bound to mention it to the Magistrates.  There is no summary punishment under the Law for resisting the Police in the execution of their duty.  There is no Night Watch beyond the two Police Constables on duty during the night.  They are appointed by the Corporation and removed by the same body at pleasure.  I consider the present Police force adequate for the daily protection and peace of the City; but as far as the prevention of crime and security of property is concerned, I think it be increased with advantage at night.  If the increase is made at all to be effective, it must be extensive.  I doubt if the increase would be agreeable to the citizens or if they would consider it repaid by the security conferred.[24]

The Provincial Commissioners focused on the system where city aldermen appointed police constables in Toronto.  In view of massive testimony about Toronto Police constables attacking opposition party events and workers, and their conspicuous absence during the violence at the Coleraine Tavern, the Inquiry concluded:

It is evident that a force thus constituted must be liable, in times of political excitement, to be employed as political instruments in behalf of those to whom the Corporation or a majority of the Corporation may be friendly.  The authority legally invested in these men, their habitual intercourse with the lower classes, the impression that they possess the ear of their employers, the favouritism they may be enabled to suggest, the petty and indirect tyranny they may be permitted to exercise, all combine to degrade a force of this nature into formidable engines of oppression.[25]

The Commission further focused on a method of coercion more subtle than the policeman’s baton:  liquor licensing.  By the time of the 1841 Inquiry, the number of taverns in Toronto licensed to sell liquor or beer was 140; one tavern for every fifty-two Torontonians over the age of sixteen.[26] The administration of liquor licensing was one of the duties of the Toronto Police.   Those tavern owners, who did not cooperate with the Tory politicians, soon found that their liquor licenses were not renewed upon expiry.  Mixed into this formula, were also all the ‘beer dispensing’ licenses, and unlicensed facilities, which the constables would see fit to handle at their “discretion.”  Making matters even worse, some liquor licenses were held by constables themselves.[27]
Numerous witnesses testified how their establishments were denied liquor licenses or had their licenses revoked when they failed to support the Tory party.  The Inquiry concluded:

The power of licensing or rather of deciding upon the qualifications of applicants for licenses–a power in the discreet and uncompromising exercise of which so much of public morality and good order depends, will and must be inevitably abused if entrusted, to the caprice of an elective Magistracy.  It will be prostituted to seduce the wavering, to reward the compliant, to punish the refractory.  The influence exercised by Tavernkeepers at public elections, is notorious, and we feel that the means which the existing Corporation have employed for securing or coercing this influence are sufficient to justify the preceding observations.[28]

Toronto’s taverns were the central focus of vote gathering power.  Dispensing intoxicants and gathering together a consensus, a tavern in 19th century Toronto, was as powerful a political tool, as television is today.   It is for this reason, that the Reform movement took an anti-alcohol stance in its early political platform. By breaking the tavern-based vote-focusing machinery of the Tories, the Reform movement hoped to seize power for itself in future elections.  However, once the Reformers aligned themselves with the religious Temperance movement in their bid for power, they found themselves permanently locked into an anti-alcohol platform on moral grounds, rather than political or strategic.  It is in these events, that we find the roots of today’s stringent liquor laws in Ontario and the foundation of the future puritanical  Toronto the Good.

View towards the “Coffin Block” at Front and Church Streets along the shoreline, circa 1845.  (top)
Building seen in sketch still surviving to be photographed in 1873. (above left)
Current “Flatiron Building” built in 1891 on the same site.  (above right)
Finally, the Provincial Commission turned its attention to the Orange Order in its Report:

The officers of the Corporation and the Police, are for the most part open and avowed Orangemen.  Orangeism has become the watchword and symbol of the party which supports the Corporation, and the most efficient if not the indespensable recommendation to civic favour or employ.

At the late Election, Orangeism was the Shibboleth of the Corporation party.  At the riots which ensued, Orangemen systematically brought into the City from the surrounding country were the most conspicuous actors…
We cannot, therefore, conclude this Report, without expressing our earnest conviction, that the existence of Orangeism in this Province, is a great and growing evil, which should be discountenanced, denounced, and repressed, by the exercise of every authority and influence at the disposal of the Government.[29]

After the report was published, Ontario quickly introduced legislation attempting to suppress the power of the Orange Order and regulate electoral conduct.  During elections the exhibiting of party flags and colours was outlawed, as was election bribery and the carrying of firearms.  In 1843 the Parliament further introduced the Party Processions Act and the Secret Societies Act, which was aimed at suppressing the Orange Order.[30] (The latter was disallowed by Britain as the Act failed to distinguish the Orange Order from another even more influential but less vitriolic secret society, the Order of Free and Accepted Masons.)  But there was nobody to enforce these Acts.  Certainly not the Toronto Police, for as Charles Daly testified above, it was “not their duty as Constables to detect infractions of the Provincial or Civic Laws, or to lay information on breaches of the same.”[31]

In 1843 City Council increased Toronto’s police strength to eight permanent constables. Two stations were established where a constable was kept on duty from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. the next morning.  The other constables patrolled in nine hour shifts but no night watch was introduced.[32]

The specter of the 1837 Rebellion reappeared again in Toronto in 1849 with the introduction of the Rebellion Losses Bill and the return to the city of William Lyon Mackenzie.  Rioting ensued and the homes of prominent Reformers were attacked, although the mobs stopped short of burning them down.  (In Montreal the Parliament building were set on fire.)  Once again, the Toronto Police were conspicuously absent while at least two Tory Aldermen led the rioters.[33] Mayor George Gurnett eventually called out the troops to restore order, for which he would be severely criticized by the Toronto City Council.

In 1849 it was approaching ten years since the Election Commission Report, but little was done to remedy the relationship between Toronto’s aldermen and the city’s police constables.  The Provincial government was moving very gradually in dismantling Toronto’s city-state administration. In 1849 it introduced the New Municipal Corporations Act, which placed Toronto’s local criminal judiciary—the Police Magistrate’s Court—under the control and pay of the Province.[34] But the Province timidly appointed Toronto’s Mayor, George Gurnett to that position.

Whatever the Province’s ambitions, the fact remained that Toronto was a key source of electoral power in the Provincial Parliament and throughout the 1840s and most of 1850s, Toronto elected Tory, not Reform candidates to the Legislative Assembly.  The Province hesitated to force reform on the Toronto Police system, despite the continual abuses.  In 1852, matters only became worse:  the City appointed Samuel Sherwood as Chief of Police.  Samuel was the brother of Henry Sherwood, whose defeat along with Monro had sparked the 1841 election riot.  Samuel Sherwood had been implicated during the Provincial inquiry in the organizing of the armed group inside the Coleraine Tavern which opened fire on the passing victory parade.[35] Now in 1852 Sherwood was rewarded with the position of Police Chief of Toronto, an appointment he would hold until 1859.
http://www.russianbooks.org/crime/cph3.htm

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Nnamdi Ogba, 26 of Toronto was fatally shot near Scarlett Rd in Etobicoke Friday March 16, 2018

A man found dead of gunshot wounds near Scarlett Rd. in Etobicoke Friday night has been identified as Nnamdi Ogba, 26. Police are investigating his shooting as a homicide.

Police responded to the scene at Scarlett Rd. and Scarlettwood Crt., near the Humber River, after receiving a call regarding reports of gunshots around 11 p.m.

Officers found Ogba with multiple gunshot wounds, lying on the ground “unconscious and not breathing.” He was pronounced dead before any attempt to transfer him to hospital.

Police are searching for two men who were seen sprinting away from the scene.

“There was at least eight shots that were heard,” said police spokesperson Katrina Arrogate. “We’re still looking for the two suspects.”

There is no clear description of the two men seen fleeing at this point, but they were spotted heading towards Tilden Cres., Arrogate said.

Units remained on scene searching for suspects after the incident. Anyone who may have seen anything is encouraged to come forward, police say.

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Toronto neurosurgeon Dr. Mohammed Shamji is charged with killing his wife Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji ordered to stand trial

TORONTO — A Toronto neurosurgeon accused of murdering his wife has been ordered to stand trial, a prosecutor said Friday.

Dr. Mohammed Shamji is charged with first-degree murder and committing an indignity to human remains in the death of Dr. Elana Fric-Shamji, the mother of his three children.

A Crown lawyer in the case said a date has not yet been picked for the start of the trial, but noted that Shamji is scheduled to return to court April 6.

Fric-Shamji, a family doctor at Scarborough and Rouge Hospital, was last seen Nov. 30, 2016.

The 40-year-old's beaten body was found in a suitcase by the side of a road north of Toronto the following day. Police arrested Shamji, her husband of 12 years, the day after that.

An investigation revealed Fric-Shamji had died of strangulation and blunt force trauma, police said at the time.

Social media posts depicted the couple as having a blissful family life, but police said the relationship had been troubled.

Prior to his arrest Shamji worked at Toronto Western Hospital and was a faculty member at the University of Toronto.

He and his wife both had advanced degrees in addition to their medical qualifications.

Fric-Shamji had a master's degree in public policy from Duke University, according to a biography in research she published. Shamji has a PhD in biomedical engineering, also from Duke.

Her death sparked an outpouring of grief and disbelief from those who knew Fric-Shamji, described as a talented professional who helped improve the health-care system.

"We would ... like to express thanks to the many friends, neighbours and colleagues who have shared their memories of Elana as a wonderful person, mother, and physician," her family said in a December 2016 statement.
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Toronto “leadership” award goes to BLM co-founder Yusra Khogali

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Toronto's Housing Market Crash is Epic! - What You Need To Know

Josh Sigurdson talks with author and economic analyst John Sneisen about the alarming plunge of the Toronto real estate market as we've seen a plunge of about 17% in home value since April, 2017 when the market saw a 30% year over year average. That's less than a year!

While 41.2% less people are buying detached homes in Toronto, 10% more people are buying condos, cutting costs, likely because the massive dip in the market has hurt their wallets.

The demand is not there, but there's certainly a lot of building and the market saw the peaks and euphoria, but people are packing up. This is exactly what we predicted as the market saw all time highs. It was unnatural. It was euphoric. It was manipulated. People with no understanding of the market were using their homes as piggy banks, taking out mortgages and expecting everything to appreciate in value without limitations. This was of course naive and we've seen this kind of attitude before.

We are seeing the return of the collateralized debt obligations (now known as collateralized loan obligations) by banks like BMO, not to mention the return of the credit default swaps and mortgage backed securities. No surprises that you play such games, you will win the same terrible prizes.

We are seeing a similar housing bubble in Vancouver that will go the way of Toronto as well. Of course no one in the media is reporting on it which is why we do what we can to give people the information necessary for them as individuals to prepare. This is not going to be pretty and knowing this info could if applied correctly with good due dilligence prepare individuals and safeguard them from the collapse of the overall market.

There are housing bubbles popping up in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, London UK, Sydney and Perth Australia, Oslo Norway and countless other places throughout the world. It's about time we stop repeating history over and over again and start understanding the causes of these problems rooted in the central banking system and stop perpetuating the problems with government and further central bank action. The free market shall prevail as long as individuals educate themselves accordingly.
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Toronto's Dwayne Anthony Vidal father of three, shot dead in Etobicoke on March 10, 2018

Dwayne Anthony Vidal, a young father of three children, was feeling happy about his new job and moving towards a better life when he left work at 5 p.m. on March 10.

About 40 minutes later, he was fatally shot in the chest steps away from his townhouse at 17 Mount Olive Dr., near Martin Grove and Albion Rds. in Etobicoke.

Police said the suspect fled the scene immediately in the passenger seat of a white vehicle.

Vidal’s children, two sons and a daughter, were waiting for their dad to get home.

Friends and family remember the 31-year-old chef at Villa Colombo, a long-term care facility in North York, as a hardworking, funny, loving man who adored his kids and made delicious fried rice.

“He talked a lot about the things he wanted to do in his life,” said Palma Clarke, a co-worker and a friend of Vidal, who was “more like a son than a friend.”

“He talked about how he wanted to buy a house with his brother. He had gone back to school to get his trucking license and recently got a job as a truck driver. He was working multiple jobs. He always remembered to take care of his kids. He always wanted to do something to excel in life for them,” Clarke told the Star over the phone.

“The last time I saw him, Dwayne made us fried rice and chicken at work,” Clarke said.

“The fried rice was his speciality and so tasty. The curry goat he also made was to die for. We just talked and goofed around. He was always cracking jokes.”

“I still call him,” Clarke added. “I called him today too hoping he would pick up.”

Originally from Jamaica, Vidal moved to Canada with his younger brother and father in 1997, according to his brother Troy Vidal.

“He was a great big brother,” Vidal said.

“His personality was awesome. He was fun, outgoing, living. It was always about his family and close friends for him. When he was not working hard, he was with family.”

“I remember the times we used to play soccer together when we were young. I remember being there for his first baby in the hospital. He was there when I had my first child,” Vidal said choking back tears.

According to Clarke and Dwayne’s brother, everyone was shocked to find out Vidal had been shot. Investigators said on Wednesday morning that Vidal was not known to police, and could not comment on whether or not the shooting was targeted.

It was interesting because Dwayne always worried about the neighbourhood he lived in, Clarke said.

“He was always worried about all the shootings. If he saw a shooting on the news, he always asked why people don’t put down the guns and the knives. He didn’t like the violence.”

Police have described the suspect of the shooting as a Black male, between 5’9” and 6’ tall, and wearing a black hood with a covering on his face.

Investigators said the suspect was captured on surveillance video walking around the townhouse complex seven to eight minutes before the shooting.
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Toronto Teen seriously injured in Flemingdon Park shooting Thursday March 15, 2018

A teenage boy is seriously injured after a shooting in Flemingdon Park Thursday night.

Toronto police were called around 11:10 p.m. in a townhouse complex near Rochefort Dr. and Deauville Ln., in the area of Don Mills and Eglinton.

When police arrived, they found the boy with multiple gunshot wounds. Toronto paramedics said he was rushed to hospital in serious, but non-life-threatening condition.

No suspect information has been released. Police are investigating.
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Toronto Homicide #11 of 2018 Dwayne Anthony Vidal Toronto Police Services News Conference

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, at 10:30 a.m., in the media gallery at headquarters, Homicide Detective Sergeant Mike Carbone updated the media on the investigation into Homicide #11/2018.

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Toronto area home prices down 12%, sales volume in February 2018 down 35% from 2017 record highs

TORONTO — The number of Toronto-area homes sold last month fell nearly 35 per cent and the average selling price dropped more than 12 per cent from historically high levels set last year, the Toronto Real Estate Board reported Tuesday.

There was a total of 5,175 residential transactions through the board's MLS system last month, down 34.9 per cent compared to the 7,955 sales in February 2017.

The region's average selling price, covering all types of residential re-sales, was down 12.4 per cent to $767,818 — still one of the most expensive in Canada.

Detached houses — the most expensive of the major categories tracked by TREB — showed the biggest declines in both the number sold and sales price compared with last year.

The detached category had also been the driving force behind a spike in prices in the early months of 2017 that prompted the Liberal provincial government to introduce a package of measures last April to cool the market.

That was followed by a financial stress test for buyers, which officially came into effect on Jan. 1 for federally regulated lenders, following an October announcement by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.

"When TREB released its outlook for 2018, the forecast anticipated a slow start to the year compared to the historically high sales count reported in the winter and early spring of 2017," TREB president Tim Syrianos said Tuesday.

"Prospective home buyers are still coming to terms with the psychological impact of the Fair Housing Plan, and some have also had to re-evaluate their plans due to the new OSFI-mandated mortgage stress test guidelines and generally higher borrowing costs."

Interest rates for mortgages have risen over the past year as a result of moves by the Bank of Canada and fluctuations in the bond markets.

However, higher borrowing costs and OSFI's stricter requirements didn't slow the Montreal market — which marked the 36th straight increase and the busiest month of February since 2012 for the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board.

The Montreal-area board reported Tuesday that home sales in Quebec's largest market — which hasn't seen a spike like Toronto's — grew five per cent year-over-year in February, and prices were up across all major categories of properties.

The median price of single-family homes across Greater Montreal was $310,000 last month, up six per cent year-over-year, while plexes reached $481,500, a one per cent increase. The median price for condominiums grew by five per cent last month, with half of all units selling for more than $250,000.

“The acceleration in price growth is a direct result of increasingly tighter market conditions, which can be explained by a decline in the supply of properties for sale," said Mathieu Cousineau, president of the GMREB board of directors.

The number of active residential listings in the board's Centris system was 26,252, down 17 per cent compared with last year.

In the Toronto area, the number of active listings in TREB’s MLS system totalled 13,362 and there were 10,520 new listings, below the 10-year average for the month of February.

Jason Mercer, TREB’s director of market analysis, said the supply of listings will likely remain below average in many neighbourhoods in the Greater Toronto Area and that could "further hamper affordability" over the long term.

In the coming months, however, Mercer said TREB expects to see a pickup in sales and selling prices relative to last year in the spring and summer — which had seen a drop-off after the provincial housing package was announced.

"Expect stronger price growth to continue in the comparatively more affordable townhouse and condominium apartment segments," Mercer said Tuesday.
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