Toronto News

TTC drivers can’t have it both ways

Last Saturday night 41-year-old Jason Pereira was shot in the face while operating his TTC bus on Morningside Avenue in Scarborough. A group of young men were running from a second group and Pereira let them board his bus. While the doors were open, someone from the second group fired shots into the bus, striking the driver who was sitting behind the wheel. Pereira is in stable condition in hospital and has lost the sight in his left eye.

The reaction to the shooting by Mayor David Miller was different than the usual one he has had to the all too numerous shootings that have plagued the city since the beginning of the summer. The mayor couldn’t get up to Sunnybrook Hospital fast enough to see the injured Pereira. Miller’s actions were far different than after 4-year-old Shaquan Cadougan took a few bullets while standing just outside his home in Toronto the Good. Miller had to be shamed into visiting Shaqaun’s home.

Miller is a socialist and love them or hate them, they look after their own. Unlike Shaquan who is just some little black kid, Jason Pereira is not only a union brother but a member of a city of Toronto union. Unions like the Amalgamated Transit Union were largely responsible for getting Miller elected in 2003. And David Miller hasn’t forgotten that.

Miller’s statement after the shooting was vintage Miller. He said the police will get the shooter. Duh!!! That’s what police do although Miller and his ilk think that all cops do is to racially profile young black males and want more money. Miller, who believes that crime will be solved by group hugs and community centres gave no indication that he was prepared to increase policing or take any concrete steps that would stem the violent crime that is taking place in the city.

TTC Chair Howard Moscoe’s reaction to the shooting was also predictable. After the July 7 terrorist attacks on the London transit system, Moscoe ceded Toronto’s transit to the terrorists, saying there is nothing that could be done and flippantly added that terrorists wouldn’t be able to find Toronto. Moscoe threw his hands up and said that any further security measures on subway lines, such as those that were implemented in New York City would mean that the terrorists would win. The guy is utterly useless although he may have a future as Canada’s Defense Minister. If guys like David Miller and Howard Moscoe were running things, the terrorists would win. It wouldn’t be all bad – at least Toronto Police Services Board member Pam McConnell would have to wear a burka. Moscoe went on to yak, in a way only he can, about putting cameras on city buses. Cameras will not prevent the type of shootings that wounded Jason Pereira or 11-year-old Tamara Carter who was earlier caught in a crossfire on a Toronto bus. Moscoe bragged about how effective cameras in taxis have been although the situations are completely different. Taxi drivers are usually intended targets of well thought out robberies, not acts of gang violence that occasionally take place on public transit or shopping malls.

At least Miller and Moscoe didn’t play politics with the situation like Union boss Bill Kinnear did. Kinnear, careful not to put any responsibility on their golden-haired boy, issued a press release blaming Premier Dalton McGuinty for lack of funds for police. While that was fair, Kinnear used his worker’s shooting to take a swipe at McGuinty for not putting enough money into transit.

TTC drivers can’t have it both ways. They can either have a mayor and a council who, like the current crop, will give the unions everything they want or they can help elect politicians who take crime seriously and who take steps to protect those employees who are required to give rides to some of the scum that is out there. If Kinnear’s release is any indication, they put a higher price on money and their contracts than they do on crime.

But the TTC, like everyone else in the city of Toronto, got the government that they elected and deserve. Until we get politicians who are prepared to take steps to fight violent crime instead of treating the bad guys as the victims who can’t help themselves because they have been deprived of community centres, the TTC are just going to have to live with the occasional shootout on public transit. They might as well get used to it.

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