The multiple-stabbing incident on Toronto transit on Dec. 8 is only the latest such crime in recent months, and some say increased violence in general can be blamed on the trend of judges going too soft on crime, ineffective policing, and the unravelling of stable families.
The random double stabbing at the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) High Park subway station killed 31-year-old Vanessa Kurpiewska and injured a 37-year-old woman. Neng Jia Jin, 52, was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in connection with the incident.
A handful of assaults on or around TTC stations had occurred earlier in the year. In April, a woman was arrested for allegedly pushing another woman onto the subway tracks at the Bloor-Yonge station and leaving her seriously injured in the fall. The same month a man was shot and killed outside Sherbourne station and another was stabbed on the St. George subway platform.
In June, a man was shot dead outside the Sheppard-Yonge station. At the Kipling station, a woman was lit on fire aboard a TTC bus and later died from the apparently random attack. Three weeks later, an 85-year-old woman was also assaulted at the Kipling station.
Proactive Policing
Blake Acton spent 30 years as a Toronto police constable and placed fourth in the recent mayoral election on Oct. 24. He says his conversations with TTC workers during the campaign reminded him of problems he witnessed during his career.“The police were scared because every time they made an arrest, or they did something that they had to, to do their job, they'd be criticized for it and could be up on charges or investigations,” he told The Epoch Times.
“So what TTC drivers are doing now, I’m being told, is that when that intoxicated person or that disruptive individual comes into the subway, or the subway cars, or the buses, they’re just letting it go because they’re terrified to get involved because they end up getting the wrong end of the stick. And I can’t blame them.”
Acton says the proactive policing approach that is required is the very solution some advocates and leadership will no longer allow. He pointed to the refusal to remove illegal tenting encampments in parks as an example of laws being ignored with impunity.
‘No Fathers and No Mothers’
Acton said he believes that crime will worsen and that increasing numbers of residents will leave Toronto as a result, making it like Detroit. He says the city isn’t what it used to be, partly because families aren’t either.“Let’s face it, there’s a lot of kids growing up right now with no fathers and no mothers. And there’s no discipline at home, there’s no sign of what’s right and what’s wrong. … [Youth are] getting into gangs, committing crimes. The police officers are almost like their parents, and that’s sad,” he said.
Philip Carl Salzman, an emeritus professor of anthropology at McGill University, called boys without dads “feminism’s collateral damage,” as most single-parent homes had children with their mothers.
Not all family structures work as well as others, he says.
“The call to ‘equity’ as a primary value ignores the real diversity that exists among individuals, families, and communities. According to ‘equity,’ all groups should have equal outcomes. But how is this possible given that all groups do not equal inputs? Some categories of people have stronger families and communities, while others have weaker ones,” Salzman said in an interview.
“Boys, of course, suffer most due to the absence of fathers. With no constructive male roles and no adult constraints, and community culture that emphasizes drugs and crime rather than education, how are these boys supposed to do well?”
‘Vicious Circle’
David Leis, former mayor of Waterloo, Ontario, and vice president of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, said “family stability” and a systemic aversion to punishment for crime have created “a vicious circle.”“If a police force is not undertaking a community-based approach, I can’t see a more powerful reason to undertake it other than these kinds of tragedies,” Leis told The Epoch Times.
Another problem is the lack of punishment for criminals within the justice system, he said.
“In Canada, you have many police that do not charge an individual because they do not believe that with current judges and prosecutors, that they are able to ensure that the charges stick. It’s an ideology that has infected too many legal circles that there should be no consequences,” Leis said.
“Meanwhile, you’re not really getting at the root causes of these issues, nor is your police proactively developing relationships to engage with people so they can get help. So it’s becoming a wildly dysfunctional system.”
Stuart Green with TTC media relations said in an email, “Our CEO spoke to Toronto Police Chief James Ramer and Mayor Tory on Thursday [Dec. 8] about our shared concerns over this incident and also about ways public safety and security on transit can be enhanced.”
