Suffice it to say that the G20 opened our eyes up to some of the excessive force used by police officers in our town. It was a dismal moment for Torontonians, in fact all Canadians, however did give us insight into a situation which is of crisis proportions.

I believe change began as the G20 wound down

So many of us seem to have a story about the police. I have heard dozens of them from friends, colleagues, synagogue goers and family. So often the stories are very unpleasant having to do with excessive force and intimidation by the police. 

Please share with me any experiences you have had with the Toronto Police Force. I am interested in positive stories and negative experiences.

Here are some links you can peruse to understand the police force in Toronto:

a)   http://torontopolice.on.ca/  – read the Forces own website. We have much to be proud of as well in our city when it comes to our police including the work they do in schools and with youth. http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/safetyzone/ read this piece having to do with teaching children and teens about conflict resolution. I applaud the Force for this work and encourage them to budget more funds for community outreach.

b) www.thepolicefile.ca – this is authored by John Sewell, former mayor of Toronto and critic of the force. He is well informed, and as a former mayor and lawyer, clearly understands the issues and the problems with a force that sees itself as outside of the fabric of the Toronto community, misunderstood by anyone who is not in the force. and intent upon growing this $1 billion entity to secure a city where crime has dropped consistently over many years. John has also written a book called: The Toronto Police: The Real Story.

c) www.tpac.ca - John Sewell is also a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Association. They are celebrating their 10th anniversary and doing a very good job of keeping us updated on issues affecting the force, our city and country. I find them to be very fair and well researched.

It is paramount that we develop trust with our police and that can only come through a cleansing process. Chief Blair needs to hear these experiences and share them with his 5600 members. Many Torontonians have been hurt by the police and it is time that changes.

We can make that change, together.

The G20 was ridiculous, and a more arrogant display of ‘leadership’ than Lebraun’s recent announcement to join the Heat. The key question that emanate from the G20 is where did all that money come from to ‘secure’ our nation?

But what is more curious is what brews inside of our police force and our government? If in fact, the authorities are able to make decisions as they did, both leading up to the G20 and throughout, we must wonder if Canada is indeed free and a liberal country until it doesn’t need to be or challenged otherwise?

Historically, Canada has responded aggressively when things seem to be out of the norm. An example, when once mayor Mel Lastman brought in the army to fight a snowstorm. Prime Minister Trudeau implemented martial law, basically an abandonment of our individual rights, when the FLQ threatened and ultimately killed a government minister.

While I appreciate the fear our leadership must feel when threatened by angry and potentially violent forces, to what extend must they go to ensure its citizens are safe? Is it okay to lock down our major city and demand that all its dwellers carry ID?

This is Canada and that means, or perhaps meant something.

People have moved here from God forsaken countries to be free and not smothered and threatened by a police force out of control, and untrained to deal with peace – which is what mostly occurred during the G20.

I believe beyond a shadow, that the thugs who destroyed property should be charged with vandalism. I do not believe, however, that the citizens of Toronto, who acted peacefully and within the laws of a civil land, should be threatened and/or locked up.

I am more uncertain now as a Torontonian. I am because it scares me that the police force has likely been emboldened by the power they were given during the G20. I am worried that our government and in fact, our people, will not pursue a public inquiry to determine who was responsible for what, and what laws might be implemented in the future to deter a misuse of power.

This was or is Canada. What that means, is now uncertain.

When my son and I are together, I often think about our ability to go to bed in peace, and wake up in the same state. We do not fear secret police, or violence on the street. We are not afraid of the government invading our privacy nor are we petrified of drug cartels, gangs etc. gaming to win over our neighborhood.

While some of those energies exist in Toronto, Ontario, Canada they are pervasive. They are not the governing body; they are not the dynamics that dictate the winds of our land.

My son, Noah and I awoke this morning,

To the sound of a peaceful warning.

The sound of that voice said to me and my boy,

Always remember your freedom,

Always consider those who are bereft of that  joy.

And so we do. O Canada we stand on guard for thee! Hear oh Israel the Lord is God the Lord is one. Well done my fellow Canadians for tucking me and my son in at night. Well done.  

Ve’ahavta was established, in part, because of the belief there was a need for the Jewish community to be less insular.

For many years following the Holocaust, the actions of our people on an international and humanitarian basis were clearly focused inward.

We fought arduously on behalf of Soviet Jews and we “purchased” men, women and children from Romania and Syria.

We worked hard to find peace and better lives for Shoah survivors.

In those days, while we strengthened ourselves by ourselves, places such as Cambodia and Biafra weren’t on our “crisis radar.”

All of this made sense, though. Six million of our people had just been murdered. Accounting firms and medical schools wouldn’t accept us. Community centres banned us. Why would we trust the average non-Jew, and especially nation-state?

Furthermore, Jews were literally being held hostage all over the world awaiting our ransom payments, leaving few resources left over for others.

(The exception to this inward focus could be found in in the State of Israel. In the early 1950s, Golda Meir launched Mashav, which was once the highest financed department in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Mashav’s mandate was/is to provide crisis relief, and medical and agricultural education and training internationally, particularly in Africa, regardless of a country’s ties with Israel, if any.

Golda was wise. She understood that “friends” could be made on the ground in ways they couldn’t be in the political arena. But it’s important to remember, too, that Golda had a confident new country behind her.)

Despite all of this, however, I never entirely understood our mistrust of the “other’’ – that is until a recent meeting with a native Canadian activist and friend.

While we sat together and sipped coffee, I asked him if his community and mine could partner in a project, something geared to enhancing the lives of native Canadians.

His response was abrupt. Angrily, he stated that the native Canadian projects he oversees are doing fine and don’t need any help from others. He added that he would no longer allow his people to be used by “the white man.”

My friend then told me about family members and friends who were suffering terribly because of the horrendous pain they had experienced in residential schools. They are survivors. We are the white man.

It took me a few days to digest my friend’s words. Initially I was hurt, as we had once worked together and accomplished a lot. I felt saddened knowing that, for him, as a Jew, I was like any other “white man” and thus responsible for much suffering.

But then I got it.

My friend was really telling me that “it’s time for native Canadians to strengthen ourselves from within. Leave us while we do that. Just like you, the Jewish People, took care of your own, so will we.

“Just like you lost trust in the gentile, so have we in the white man.”

I called him one night and told him: “I get it,” and I let him know that he had helped me understand the Jewish People, and that I had been too critical of my own kind.

I told him that my offer to help really stemmed from my own need to do so, and that it was an imposition.

Sometimes it makes sense to be insular. We were, and we should allow others to be as well.

Leafs In Our Bedroom

I have been a Toronto Maple Leafs fan since I was knee high to a grasshopper. As a kid, my father and I watched Hockey Night in Canada in our cozy Kitchener home, cheering on the mask-less Johnny Bower as he recovered from a puck to the head.

Where has it all gone? What of the fanfare and the glorious feeling of being a winner?

It has been so long – 42 years since Toronto hockey fans have walked tall in triumph and achievement.

Loss after loss has turned us into forlorn fans, walking with eyes down and with few happy tales to share.

When a Montreal fan says to us, “The Leafs suck,” we can only pretend to stand on guard for the guys in blue because we know that the Leafs really do suck.

But do they? Are we really so downtrodden, depressed and mournful about our hobbled and tattered Leafs?

I’m not so sure.

Is there not the possibility that on some very deep psychological level, the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team in a city with more hockey talent than bagels on Bathurst Street, might be exactly what we want and need?

Could it be that, subconsciously, we have created a Stanley Cup Free Zone for some very good, if neurotic and complex, reasons.

Consider this: the Toronto Maple Leafs are, and will forever be, great in the eyes of the true fan.

Memorabilia such as hockey pucks and bobble-headed Borje Salming dolls are difficult for store owners to keep in stock. There’s barely a man or woman in Thunder Bay, Niagara Falls, Bala or Thornhill who wouldn’t fight to the death to hold four Leaf tickets in their hands, to have the chance to take their beloved family to watch an opening faceoff at the Air Canada Centre and to hear the thud of Alexei Ponikarovsky being checked into the boards – despite their team being mired at the bottom of the standings.

Ask any junior player who is drafted by the Leafs how they feel. The inevitable response is: “I grew up on the Leafs. This is a lifelong dream.”

Our Leafs are icons. They are our Greek Olympians – strong, mighty and standing high on a mountaintop with sticks aloft. In our minds, it’s therefore insignificant whether they win or lose. The fact is, we are satisfied that the Leafs exist at all. We are content knowing that we’re able to celebrate our Canadian-ness through them and have a relationship with the only true royalty that our country has – pro hockey players.

Coupled with that is the wearisome reality that Torontonians, and perhaps Canadians in general, harbour a very well-developed sense of mediocrity in which we expect the cream to sink to the bottom.

In some strange and tragic way, we actually celebrate our losses and stomp on excellence – except in one area: money!

We Torontonians just love money. Cash is what makes our city so appealing, not our warmth and not our greatness. And the fact is, the Toronto Maple Leafs are making bushels of coin, so why should they become more competitive. Leaf investors have gone straight to “Go” with bags of gold in hand. They’ve already won – perhaps not the Stanley Cup, but the economic Holy Grail: an unimaginable return on their Leaf investment.

Yet, on some very deep level, everyone in Leaf Nation is happy, and there’s really no need to change anything. The Leafs satisfy our desire to bow to something greater, the owners are filthy rich, and our sense of mediocrity is only strengthened by the fact that our team sits at the bottom of the standings.

Hail the Leafs: they’re truly the best team in the NHL, on some very deep psychological level.

These groups are: Hasbara Fellowship at York Hillel@York Students Against Israeli Apartheid The Tamil Students’ Association Let me again remind each of you that, as detailed by both President Shoukri and Vice-President Tiffin, academic disruption is unacceptable, injures students academically and simply cannot be permitted to continue. Let me get this straight.

Here it is in a nutshell: Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) plan a racist hate rally, and the Jewish students defend their reputation are accused of disrupting class? Essentially the president of York is stating that students should be quiet when they are being attacked by others. This is paramount to the kid being kicked in the school yard, being tossed out together with the bully.

From a source: Prof. Ed Morgan is filing a defence motion for the Hasbarah fellows at York University. You are not going to believe this. The Hasbarah fellows are being charged with demonstrating without a permit, and three Jewish students fined $500 each. The mob did not have a permit either. The thing is, this is the most critical week because if the Hasbara fellows get banned (even temporarily as is being suggested) then they can’t be present on campus to do their planned counter-activism against Israel Apartheid Week.

Call the Presidents office at York University and complain or e-mail him at mshoukri@yorku.ca

This means Israeli professors and academics will not be allowed to teach and lecture in Ontario’s universities (Ontario is Canada’s most populated province. Toronto and Ottawa are in Ontario).

Question: CUPE deals with many humanitarian issues. Looking on their website (www.cupe.on.ca) , I could only find one that had to do with a war/battle, in another country. That country is Israel.

Sid Ryan says he is not anti-Semitic, and Michael Coren (a well established on-air TV host; http://www.michaelcoren.com/http://www.michaelcoren.com/) defends him. Michael might be right. He may not be.

The real question is: WHY ISRAEL? Sid, please answer this:

a) Israel is under siege from entities who openly proclaim their goals, one of which is to destroy Israel. What would you do if somebody wanted to eradicate Canada? What should Israel do?

b) What about the hundreds of thousands of dead and dying in Darfur? Can Sudan’s professors lecture his? According to Sid and CUPE, yes. What about the massacres going on in The Congo and the hateful and barbaric activities of dictators and ‘leaders’ all over the world? Is CUPE voting to have their academics barred from Ontario? No? Why?

Sid Ryan and CUPE — you have just helped a cause that is age-old. It’s called anti-Semitism. Making Israel the ‘worst, props up other countries that are responsible for heinous acts against their own citizens and others.

This vote excites their leaders as they now feel emboldened to pursue their mission of greed and hatred, especially those who hurl venemous names and threats at the State of Israel.

Israel and the Jewish people now have to use its resources to defend itself against silly, preposterous actions like CUPE’s.

Sid, I encourage you to take on the next ‘worst’ country now. Take your pick. It is endless. It’s only fair.

Sid, I encourage you to join the Jewish community on Kipa-Friday when we wear our skullcaps and magen davids proudly every Friday in March. Show your solidarity with the Jewish people. Perhaps you can make it a resolution of CUPE. Perhaps all CUPE members can join the Jewish community in an outward and public show of pride.

What’s up Sid? Why Israel? Is it truly the worst in your eyes?

Note: At the end of the day, CUPE has caused serious damage but most Canadians recognize that this is not our way, and that the CUPE vote and leadership is void of tolerance, goodness and a sense of fair play.