City
Blowing Leaves, Human Chain, Tortured in Leslieville, Possible June Election?
Photo: "In the spotlight" by bigdaddyhame, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Could Liberal leader Micheal Ignatieff's confrontational stance on the current issues affecting unemployment insurance result in a June federal election [Star]? I'm calling hot air on this one, mostly because the consent of all three opposition parties is required to force an election, and I just can't see this being the issue that does it.
Speaking of hot air...
The city's controversial proposal to ban gas-powered, small engine leaf blowers seems to have cooled down some. Rather than pushing for an all-out ban of the devices, the city may move in a less aggressive direction, opting to guilt people and offer incentives for those using cleaner tools instead [G&M].
Be prepared for more traffic disruptions, and more heated debate (aka intolerance rearing its head) about the Tamil protest issues. Word is that yet another human chain is being planned for tomorrow, and organizers hope to see 100,000 people partake [Sun].
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Two dangerous men are being sought, after allegedly torturing a man after he spoke to police about their possible involvement in a robbery that occurred two years ago [City]. While the Leslieville apartment wasn't likely on par with the scene from Reservoir Dogs, it does sound like a terrible way to spend 5 hours.
A young man is dead after being gunned down at a TTC bus stop [Sun]. No, this isn't deja vu - it's happened again, and police and members of the community don't know what would drive anyone to want to kill the teen.
Discussion
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This information could be out of date, or wikipedia could be wrong (as it often is), but that's a huge discrepancy.
It's backed up by the city of Toronto's website who lists the top 5 (With Tamil not being part of it)
<i># The top 5 mother tongue languages in 2006 were:</i>
<i>* Chinese (420,000);</i>
<i>* Italian (195,000);</i>
<i>* Punjabi (138,000);</i>
<i>* Tagalog/Pilipino (114,000);</i>
<i>* Portuguese (113,000).</i>
It also comes into conflict with statistics canada reporting that there are only as many as 140,000 Tamil in <b>all of Canada</b>
"# The top 5 mother tongue languages in 2006 were:
* Chinese (420,000);
* Italian (195,000);
* Punjabi (138,000);
* Tagalog/Pilipino (114,000);
* Portuguese (113,000)."
First you have to wonder about the cabbie involved here; I mean the guy must have been in obvious distress but secondly Coxwell & Dundas is right in front of 55 Division :)
More power to the protesters and their efforts. I may have issues some aspects of what they are doing, but not in the fact that they are protesting... so long as they don't block traffic.
It appears the Star has already touched on the conflicting numbers
"But readers were not given the most accurate or complete account. Given the significant range of difference in data, the reporter should not have stated as undisputed fact that 200,000 Tamils reside in Greater Toronto. Readers would have been better served by being informed of Statistics Canada's "official" tally and the extensive gap between that figure and the number deemed accurate by academic experts. This is essential context here."
in the GTA, the number of immigrant french speakers nearly passes the number of people who were born in Quebec or in an Francontarian family.
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All that being said. i hope they get 100, 000 and i hope they snarl traffic to a snails pace. what is happening in Sri Lanka is a trajedy and instead of complaining to and about the protesters, complain to the US embassy, to the Canadian Government to HELP the Tamil people.
Your definition of intolerance is too broad. In any free country, it is within reasonable parameters to question whether any group supporting any cause should be allowed to shut down a major city artery for days at a time.
If a Sinhalese group were to set up a counter-protest, would that be intolerance?
If one of the hospitals were to petition the police to shut down the protest after a day, is that intolerance?
Is it intolerance if a WASPy editorialists run stories praising the police for actually shutting down the protest after several days?
Is intolerance defined by what you're doing, what your argument is, or simply by who you are?
Personally, i think that tolerance -- stemming from the forgotten English verb 'to tolerate' -- means using words instead of violence, and then being adult about it when you don't get your way. I may not like what you're doing, but i'm not going to start swinging a board with a nail in it.
But Tamils and their supporters I think would be better off gathering support without flying the flag of the Tigers. Even without associating themselves with a designated terrorist group they still have an uphill battle in trying to convince Canada to involve itself in another country's civil war when the current mission in Afghanistan is already a touchy subject. (And history has shown time and again that getting involved in another country's civil war ends up badly about 90% of the time)
I agree with Ian on this one. It actually reads to me as:
If you take the "other side" of this debate we're intolerant of you.
In Canada, Tamils have every right to protest the plight of their people trapped in this terrible conflict. Terrorists do not.
The fact that people are very frustrated by it, but resort to writing letters to the editor and posting on BlogTO speaks of our tolerance as a society.
Influencing governments hung up on symbolism can be a game, so maybe Tamils would have a better shot at getting Canada to step up with a role in the conflicts abroad were they to put down the flags. It would be quicker than trying to convince them to stop calling LTTE a terrorist organization, that's for sure.
These protests are asking too much and are starting to become a nuisance to the public. It's perfectly reasonable for them to gather in protest, but there are limits that they have crossed. If they continue to persist, they will only be causing further conflict and for me personally, raising my doubts as to the truth and merits of their motivations. They need to stop blocking streets and find a more peaceful way to congregate and share their message.
I'm being realistic when I say this... but people don't F'ing care. You don't know how many people I've overheard saying exactly that, in fact, they're even more pissed off because of the disruption in traffic, which in turn makes them less sympathetic.
Anyway, the Canadian government has pledged $3 million to Sri Lanka and that has people bother as well: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/628661
2) Instead of the leafblowers, lets focus on the fogies who water their sidewalks.
3) Alright, wednesday. we'll start an Al-Qaeda rally. Hopefully we can get 100,001 people to show up. If that fails, a taliban rally on thursday. Seriously, the problem in Sri Lanka is definitely grave, but the organizers have now pissed off a ton of people, and are being rather unreasonable (saying the cops who should've shut them down on day one are racist, asking us to support a terrorist regime, waving the flags, etc.).