Welcome to the New
City of Toronto
the city that hates the poor !
In the
new Toronto, Government and Police are currently waging war against the
most vulnerable citizens of the city, the poor and the homeless.
Under the
guise of a campaign to get rid of
"squeegee
kids". The real issue is the fact that
cutbacks
in government funding have given thousands of people no alternative but
to resort to
living
on the street and panhandling to survive.
The powers
that be intend to criminalize
homelessness,
and merely harras and abuse these
people
for the crime of being poor. Unless this
action
is stopped, thousands of helpless people
will end
up in our court and prison system all
because
of the lack of any real commitment from
our government
to actually solving the problems.
Listen
to mayor Lastman claiming there are
no homeless
people in North York when he was
still a
Mini-City Mayor : Mel's
comment on the homeless (.wav format)
Is this
how out of touch mayor Mel Lastman is
on what's
going on with the people of Toronto ?
"Mayor:
It's War on Squeegees" was the
Toronto
Sun Headline July 23, 1998.
Here are
some quotes from mayor Lastman:
"They're
beggars, that's all they are. Out !"
"Many of
them are a bunch of thugs and
nothing
else."
"The war
has started, The police are going to do
everything
possible to get squeegee kids off
the streets"
"If they
don't pay their tickets, they're in jail."
Mayor Lastman
should remember that they
are also
citizens of Toronto which he is supposed
to represent.
One has to wonder, what sort of city, and mayor we have that proudly proclaims
he's waging a war against the poorest and most helpless of his own city's
citizens ?