Anyone is welcome to submit a Guest Blog Entry to torontomike.com. I received the following entry earlier today.
The shooting on Boxing Day outside the Eaton Centre deeply disturbed my husband and I. This act of violence was committed in areas we frequent. This election season when the parties in each riding call to ask if we are going to vote, maybe we should ask, "Convince me why we should." I think that politicians have absolutely NO understanding of what is going on. I feel that politicians, often, live in their own bubble, much like anyone of us. Their needs, are not the needs of the single mom who has 3 children, and needs to work 2 jobs to survive and can't afford to send her children on field trips or pay for tennis lessons they have always wanted because the rec centre in the neighbourhood closed down due to government cutbacks. It is these government cutbacks from youth programs that has affected youths of today. I believe the violence we are seeing today is a result of youth boredom in impoverished communities. Educational curriculum for children needs to include problem solving and conflict resolution skills, build on values of mutual respect and nonviolence. We all need to live less in our bubbles and work together to strengthen community cohesiveness. Secondary factors, include access to weapons and the responses to violence, including policing presence, access to social services, courts and corrections. We need changes to our legal system. We put the politicians in office to speak on our behalf. We employ them, insist they make changes to our legal system. Every time a gun is fired on our streets, it's not only the shooter who is to blame, it's us for not putting a stop to this behavior.
Jill
We totally agree. This was Jane Creba, a grade 10 student at Riverdale Collegiate Institute. A promising life cut brutally short. We're all to blame.
