anti-Semitic acts of vandalism continued to rise in Toronto and other large Canadian cities. Perhaps it’s because City Hall never gave grants to Jewish groups. Year after year, they were conspicuously absent from the list of groups and projects that were handed tax money. There was even a political correctness bordering on reverse discrimination when it came to doling out those anti-racism grants. Each and every year, an A-list of fuzzy-wuzzy visible minority causes would automatically be handed these grants without question, and with few checks and balanceson whether they accomplished anything remotely related to their mandate and goals, if goals existed. Each time I would bring up the fact that these grants were poorly monitored and represented one of the worst examples of political correctness run amok, city officials would look at me like I was both crazy and heartless. “There she goes again…”
I still remember the day in 2005 when I turned up at a city-funded community safety conference that was supposed to address the escalating gun violence and drug and gang problems of that summer, labelled the “Summer of the Gun.” Instead of witnessing any serious and practical discussion to address a very real issue that continues to affect the city, however, I came just in time to hear an Australian poet and faith healer break into song with a tune she said had the power to remove “barriers.” The director of the Centre for Indigenous Education at the University of Melbourne told the 150 people who hung on to her every word to close their eyes while she sang, and to remember the “sacred” words she chanted in her native dialect. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and seeing. All eyes in the room were firmly shut! It’s not as if anyone could understand what she was shrieking, let alone remember it. No one sat there, as I did, wondering first of all what the hell this ridiculous gobbledygook had to do with gun violence and, more significantly, how much this woman was costing taxpayers. If the audience there thought her antics crazy, they certainly weren’t showing it. Like a bunch of indoctrinated cultists, they were all caught up in the madness of that moment. As ridiculous as they were, the grants persisted because, like the audience watching the Australian drummer that June day, no bureaucrat or politician ever had the guts to say “Stop the madness” or to cancel the grants for fear he or shewould be called inhumane, racist, and all kinds of other pejorative terms perpetuated by the limousine lefties at City Hall.
Aggressive panhandling was another untouchable subject in the city of Toronto. When the problem first became an issue under Mayor Mel Lastman, he claimed there was nothing he could do, even though the province’s Safe Streets Act was already well in place. All he had to do was instruct the Toronto police to beef up enforcement. But he didn’t have the guts to do so and the problem got worse. Obviously he was scared of how it would look politically if the cops were actually allowed to do their job and fine those who committed crimes, sometimes quite aggressively. When in 2006 a gutsy councillor and mayoralty candidate, Jane Pitfield, had the temerity to try to legislate an anti-panhandling bylaw – similar to one being used in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Moncton, Fredericton, and Montreal – she was harassed and threatened to the point of nearly being terrorized by the anti-poverty activists. In the spring of 2006, members of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee led by homelessness activist Cathy Crowe, a group I came to call the poverty pimps, would repeatedly show up to the city’s homelessness advisory committee – headed by Ms. Pitfield – and try to hijack the proceedings by screaming and shouting insults at the councillor. They also made a show of attempting to oust Ms. Pitfield as co-chair. When that didn’t work, they boycotted the committee’s final two meetings. The
I still remember the day in 2005 when I turned up at a city-funded community safety conference that was supposed to address the escalating gun violence and drug and gang problems of that summer, labelled the “Summer of the Gun.” Instead of witnessing any serious and practical discussion to address a very real issue that continues to affect the city, however, I came just in time to hear an Australian poet and faith healer break into song with a tune she said had the power to remove “barriers.” The director of the Centre for Indigenous Education at the University of Melbourne told the 150 people who hung on to her every word to close their eyes while she sang, and to remember the “sacred” words she chanted in her native dialect. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and seeing. All eyes in the room were firmly shut! It’s not as if anyone could understand what she was shrieking, let alone remember it. No one sat there, as I did, wondering first of all what the hell this ridiculous gobbledygook had to do with gun violence and, more significantly, how much this woman was costing taxpayers. If the audience there thought her antics crazy, they certainly weren’t showing it. Like a bunch of indoctrinated cultists, they were all caught up in the madness of that moment. As ridiculous as they were, the grants persisted because, like the audience watching the Australian drummer that June day, no bureaucrat or politician ever had the guts to say “Stop the madness” or to cancel the grants for fear he or shewould be called inhumane, racist, and all kinds of other pejorative terms perpetuated by the limousine lefties at City Hall.
Aggressive panhandling was another untouchable subject in the city of Toronto. When the problem first became an issue under Mayor Mel Lastman, he claimed there was nothing he could do, even though the province’s Safe Streets Act was already well in place. All he had to do was instruct the Toronto police to beef up enforcement. But he didn’t have the guts to do so and the problem got worse. Obviously he was scared of how it would look politically if the cops were actually allowed to do their job and fine those who committed crimes, sometimes quite aggressively. When in 2006 a gutsy councillor and mayoralty candidate, Jane Pitfield, had the temerity to try to legislate an anti-panhandling bylaw – similar to one being used in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Moncton, Fredericton, and Montreal – she was harassed and threatened to the point of nearly being terrorized by the anti-poverty activists. In the spring of 2006, members of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee led by homelessness activist Cathy Crowe, a group I came to call the poverty pimps, would repeatedly show up to the city’s homelessness advisory committee – headed by Ms. Pitfield – and try to hijack the proceedings by screaming and shouting insults at the councillor. They also made a show of attempting to oust Ms. Pitfield as co-chair. When that didn’t work, they boycotted the committee’s final two meetings. The
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