There is no doubt that the Jane-Finch community has been known for many things over the years – some of which have not always been very positive. This being said, there has also never been a shortage of occasions within the community that are worth celebrating. The launch of PEACH Radio is one such occasion. Community leader, Wayne Black, and Shari Castello, the Executive Director of PEACH (Promoting Education and Community Health), launched PEACH Radio in the hope that it will serve as a platform that would facilitate dialogue in the community by creating an open public forum to discuss issues such as education, mental health, justice, and more. This exciting and innovating project will also provide many opportunities for young and aspiring journalists in the community. Moreover, local businesses and neighbourhood organizations will benefit as they now have a local outlet through which they can advertise and promote themselves.“We want people to be insightful and aware of what’s happening,” Wayne Black says. Both Black and Castello emphasize the need for more local communication outlets in the community, citing the many notable developments in the education and public health front that need to be better publicized. Some of the key focuses of PEACH Radio will include local artists, local athletes, local community organizations and agencies, and the local experiences and concerns of youth in the community. The official PEACH Radio launch took place on May 3 and despite the rainy weather, familiar faces in the community including local artist, Kofi Frempong, and members of the Black Creek Community Health Centre came to show their support. Other locals artists such as EYE 2 EYE and Sydanie and Terence Penny also showed their support by performing for the audience. Both Wayne and Shari hope that this project will bring to the fore underground issues that are often overlooked and to create a forum that will connect local issues, the arts, culture and education to reinforce the voice of the community. Visit www.PeachRadioLive.com today to hear about what’s happening in and around the community.
Editorial ✘Downsview Votes
According to the most recent polls, the Wynne Liberals have lost the confidence of most Ontarians. Instinctively, Ontarians looked to the Progressive Conservatives to end the 15-year-long reign of Liberals at Queen’s Park. However, the abrupt resignation of Patrick Brown and the controversies surrounding his leadership, and the poorly organized PC leadership race that ensued, made Progressive Conservatives look less and less like a viable option for most Ontarians. This sentiment was further reinforced by Doug Ford’s Greenbelt remarks and the Highway 407 data breach controversy which saw the resignation of the PC candidate for Brampton East. Also, Ford’s failure to present Ontario voters with a comprehensive platform makes Ontarians question the aptness of Progressive Conservatives to take charge of the province. The only other option left for Ontarians is Andrea Horwath, the leader of Ontario’s New Democrats, who is seen as the most trustworthy contender in this fierce election season. In contrast to Ford’s PCs, the NDP has presented a fully costed platform that seeks to address some of the greatest challenges faced by Ontarians and aims to make life more affordable for people in the province. This year, the election race in Humber River–Black Creek has proven to be an exciting one with three new and diverse candidates. The candidate that The Downsview Advocate is proud to endorse is Tom Rakocevic. Tom’s rich knowledge of the community and his years of experience advocating for local issues make him a strong voice for Humber River–Black Creek.
Working with Community
The Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN), DUKE Heights BIA and Osgoode Hall Law School organized the March 23 and 24 Creating Opportunities Summit to take a good hard look at what truly makes great communities. In our efforts to find the perfect solutions, we often ignore big problems and make matters worse by doubling down on things that aren’t working. Whether it’s capacity building in marginalized communities, local policy making in neighbourhood improvement areas (NIAs) or just plain racism, no one answer fits all. If the summit had one great takeaway for me, it’s that finding shared prosperity will come through working with community and not for community. The summit was an amazing chance for communities to come together with agencies, government workers, thought leaders and entrepreneurs, to really drill down and explore community benefits together. The two-day event kicked off with a bus tour that took delegates along the future Finch West LRT route. The route holds much promise for investment where there has been so little for nearly 40 years. There was a short detour to the future Woodbine Racetrack redevelopment, another possible place for community benefits. An incredible “poster exhibit” on community benefits was moved to Day-2 because of the strike at York University and even the strike didn’t put a damper on the success of the event. The bus tour was followed by a celebration dinner at York University’s Underground restaurant. The dinner included a speech from Senator Ratna Omidvar who will sponsor the Community Benefits Bill when it reaches the Senate from the House of Commons. The conference which took place the next day at Jackman Law Building at the University of Toronto was full of timely information on what community benefits can mean and how they can be achieved. The opening panel discussion included a passionate address from Hamilton City Councillor Matthew Green who has been at the forefront of the community benefits movement in Hamilton. Other incredible speakers included lawyer Anthony Morgan who spoke on racial justice issues in Canadian law and policy. Climate change and its impacts on communities were also covered. There were case studies on community benefits in action and there were new friendships hatched and plans for future cooperation laid out. I’ve only scratched the surface here of all the amazingness that happened over the 2 days - I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next year.
Our Community Deserves Fair Auto Insurance
It's 2018 and the Downsview community still pays some of the highest auto insurance rates in the country.I raised the issue of auto insurance company discrimination towards our community as far back as 2012 when I co-hosted a crowded town hall meeting with Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath. Local residents were angry about sky-high premiums and a lack of government action on this important issue.At the time, the Ontario NDP conducted research on the matter and showed that the same person would pay a premium of $1,153 if they lived at Lawrence Park, but $2,517 if they lived at Jane-Finch. I dug deeper and found that we faced this cost discrimination despite the fact that our neighbourhood had neither the highest rates of vehicle crime nor accidents.With pressure from the NDP, the government promised a reduction of 15% on auto insurance rates. In 2016, when the government was criticized for not delivering on the reduction, Premier Wynne referred to her promise as more of a "stretch goal".In early 2017, with pressure for action mounting, the government released the Marshall Report. Local disability and personal injury lawyer Juan Carranza is skeptical of this report, saying "The government's report does little to address the power imbalance between insurers and accident victims and assumes the insurance industry will act out of the goodness of their hearts." Mr. Carranza further cited a lack of transparency around auto insurers' profits and the amount of money they spend fighting to deny the claims of accident victims.A year after the report's release, local residents have yet to see an improvement in the auto insurance system. Once again, this past March, I co-hosted a local auto insurance town hall meeting with Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, to give our community the opportunity to voice their concerns on this important issue. Residents packed the room and watched online, expressing frustration with the government and stating that their insurance rates continue to rise.Andrea Horwath spoke strongly for better government oversight, stating "An NDP government will deliver the 15% savings the Liberals refused to deliver and we won't allow your postal code to determine how much you pay."Auto insurance relief is long overdue, especially in our community where families struggling to pay the bills also pay the country's highest auto insurance premiums. In fact, many local residents who can afford a car cannot afford the insurance, so they face needless hours of daily commute times to distant jobs. The auto insurance industry is government regulated and the people deserve better government oversight and accountability rather than broken promises and "stretch goals".
Our Schools in Disrepair and Disarray
Our schools are valuable public assets. They help set the prices for homes in our neighbourhoods. They set the standard by which our children are able to thrive. They are central parts of our communities and their health affects everyone, whether directly or indirectly. Letting them fall in disrepair to the tune of $15 billion across Ontario, like the provincial government has done, is letting our communities down and putting our kids at risk. Just recently at Derrydown Public School, multiple news sources reported an incident where three children were injured as workers were doing repairs to the school’s roof. Tar dripped down through the ceiling on children below during gym class. Two children were taken to hospital, but thankfully, they are expected to do fine. The larger issue is that this is not an isolated incident. A website called www.fixourschools.ca details some of the incidents: scaffolding injuring a child; another child suffering cuts due to lack of lunchroom supervision; a railing in a playground giving way and resulting in a child breaking her wrist; the list goes on. These are recent incidents that speak to the backlog of disrepair and to the larger issue of inadequate funding for our public schools. Moneys needed for emergency repairs have been taken away by more immediate operational budget needs in our schools for years. This ultimately affects the quality of education in our classrooms over time as the budget gets tighter with the growing backlog of repairs. Today we have less specialized assistants to deal with children that need one-on-one help, we have fewer lunchroom supervisors, and parents are increasingly asked to fundraise more and more to fill in gaps. In the 1990s, the Progressive Conservative government gave developers a tax break by structuring development fees in such a way that they would no longer have to contribute toward new schools in school boards like the TDSB. As a result of this, new construction projects in the City of Toronto have not led to more investments in public schools. This system has been maintained by the current Liberal government, despite their protestations about investments in our schools. Ultimately, developers saved hundreds of millions of dollars through this tax cut in Toronto. The tax cut reduced the funding school boards depended on for capital investments and, as a result, schools in Toronto have millions of dollars worth of disrepair despite the longest continuous real estate boom in Canadian history. The repair work that does take place is often done in case of emergencies, rather than to systematically maintain buildings in a financially responsible way.We can all change this. There are two million school children in Ontario. Our city is growing and we need to ensure that our schools are safe places of learning and that we invest in the public assets that we all own so that they can be used by future generations.
Jane-Finch Residents Needed for Neighbourhood Improvement
Toronto is the richest city in one of the richest countries on Earth, but that isn’t so obvious in many of its neighbourhoods. After decades of neglect by local governments, poverty has become entrenched in many areas. In an effort to address this, in 2011 the City started the Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy 2020 (an unwieldy name so this article will call it TSNS). The idea is that by 2020, TSNS will improve these poverty-stricken neighbourhoods to the level of the rest of the city. The neighbourhoods were ranked according to five criteria: physical surroundings, economic opportunities, healthy lives, social development, and participation in civic decision-making. Originally called “priority neighbourhoods”, the city now calls them “Neigbourhood Improvement Areas” (NIAs). The City has identified 31 NIAs. Unsurprisingly, Jane-Finch scored the lowest among all of them.TSNS sounds good in theory, but in practice, it’s a heavily bureaucratised way for the City to appear as if it’s doing something to address endemic poverty. TSNS has produced many reports but, without proper investment, poverty will still be widespread in all NIAs. Despite this, participation by residents is still necessary as low interest will be taken as a lack of desire for improvement and will lead to a lack of investment by the City. In response, residents in the Jane-Finch area collectively organized and wrote their own report, Community Response to TSNS. By interviewing Jane-Finch residents, community organizations, social service agencies, and grassroots groups, the Jane-Finch TSNS Task Force identified five main areas of concern: housing and physical surroundings (including public transportation), education, employment, health care, and access to healthy and affordable food. This has led to the formation of working groups on Housing, the Health Care Action Committee, and the Economic Opportunities Committee. An already existing group, the Black Creek Food Justice Network, was invited to deal with issues related to food security, food education, and growing your own food.The Jane-Finch TSNS Task Force meets every other month at Yorkgate Mall’s York University TD Community Engagement Centre. The meeting is held on the third Monday of the month from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Food, TTC tokens, and childcare are provided for all attendees. The working groups meet on the months in between, with varying locations and times. Send an email to jftaskforce@gmail.com for more information, including copies of the reports above mentioned.
Giving Ourselves WHO’s Gift of Health
Who is WHO? WHO is the World Health Organization, the United Nations’ agency for international health. The 1948 Charter of WHO defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." April 2018 will bring us the 70th anniversary of WHO. Though I often write about food and nutrition, they are not the only basis for good health. As the WHO definition of health tells us, we must broaden our focus to include physical, mental and social well-being. Physical activity at work or during leisure is equally important as nutrition. Mental health depends on our relationships with other people, with our community and with the environment. We’re not health hermits! Research shows that people who find something to be grateful for every day live happier, healthier and longer lives. Social well-being equals interdependence. Safety of our water, quality of our food and the relative cleanliness of our air reflect collective commitments.Social well-being also includes the protection and development of children and the communal support of the persons who nurture and educate them. Social well-being means taking good care of people who are exposed to potential hardships by age, frailty, economic stress, physical or mental challenges, or for any other reasons. Social well-being requires our readiness to correct abuse. All of that is part of individual and community health. At the heart of the WHO definition is “community.” This word doesn’t appear in the definition, but the concept is foundational for all three components (physical, mental, and social). To be healthy, we need to be connected and compassionate toward one another.Speaking of connectivity, we in Downsview just got a boost. The subway extension means improved connectivity with friends, with family members, with our uptown and downtown universities and hospitals. Our social fabric will be tighter and our professional performance will be enhanced and will become more efficient. Health and transportation are intimately connected. For the 75th anniversary of WHO, our present will be the Finch LRT, bringing a game-changing Arts Centre and Community Hub at Jane-Finch. It will be an uplift—a health uplift.Ever since my early years in Canada, the WHO definition of health has been an inspiration for me. I am grateful that individual health and community health coincide in my professional career. Opinions or questions? Write to Nicole@IndividualCare.ca. Nicole Constant is a registered Doctor of Naturopathy. Her website is: www.IndividualCare.ca.
Expanding the Use of Allen Rd and Dufferin St: Converting Diamond Lanes to HOV Lanes
Over the past ten years, if you've driven north or south on Allen Road and Dufferin Street between Sheppard Avenue and just north of Finch Avenue, you will notice shoulder lanes that are almost always empty and yet motorists cannot use them. These are "diamond lanes” reserved for transit buses all day and all night, 7 days a week. The lanes have long been a source of great frustration for residents in our community. Since my arrival in Toronto City Council, I have been working to loosen the restrictions on these lanes. Over the years, I was repeatedly told by City staff that once the subway extension to Vaughan was complete, these lanes would be converted back to regular traffic lanes, open to all. Recently, we made some great progress. At the City of Toronto's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee meeting on February 27th, I worked with Councillor Anthony Perruzza to have the committee pass a motion that will convert the diamond lanes on Allen Road and Dufferin Street to High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes for vehicles containing a minimum of two people. In addition to busses, the lanes can now be used by cyclists, motorcyclists and taxis. The item will now go to City Council on March 26th for approval. We are also seeing the other positive impacts of the new subway extension on our local streets. With more residents north of Toronto taking the subway downtown to work, there are less cars cutting through our neighbourhoods. With new commuter parking lots along the north part of the subway extension, dozens of parking spaces at the Wilson and Sheppard West subway station lots have opened up. The opening of the new subway proves that investing in transit provides dividends for both transit riders and motorists. Keep up with our progress and check back for regular updates at www.JamesPasternak.ca.
Lynessa: Hard at Work, Happy at Work
How can a young girl who likes playing with Lego find fulfilling work when she grows up? If you ask Lynessa White, she’ll tell you the best way is to follow your instincts. Lynessa, a racialized woman from Downsview, has strong instincts; she defied everyone who ever gave her career advice. Raised in a traditional family, she says despite her desire to fix things and a childhood dream to be a carpenter, her mother made sure she learned to cook. She still fixed things, she did it all the time.How do women resist such discouragement, whether it’s the guidance department steering you towards a career as a nurse, or your mother telling you to find an office job? Lynessa thought a career in the film industry would be a satisfying compromise so she attended film school in Toronto. The film set didn’t bring her the fulfillment she craved. It wasn’t until she arrived on a construction site that she discovered what was missing.When Lynessa talks about the construction project she is working on, her joy is palpable. When I first met Lynessa, she was part of the team building the Bentway Skate Trail under the Gardiner Expressway. Every project she works on involves a new approach, a new puzzle to put together, a new problem to solve. Lynessa finds that there isn't a set way of doing things on a construction site and that’s what drives her.Through Building Up, a Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN) social procurement partner, Lynessa found her path to becoming a licensed carpenter. In addition to Building Up, the process also included Carpenters Union Local 27, and Peter Kiewit Sons ULC, a private contractor. Lynessa is one of TCBN’s greatest success stories. TCBN envisions Toronto as an inclusive, thriving city in which all residents have equitable opportunities to contribute to healthy communities and a prosperous economy. TCBN is a coalition of organizations and individuals working in direct partnership with other grassroots, community, labour and anti-poverty organizations to build a strong community benefits movement in Toronto. We believe that all Torontonians should have access to the opportunities stemming from infrastructure investments, including women like Lynessa.
A Difficult Journey to Freedom
The Vietnam War (1955-1975) was a terrible battleground of the Cold War. For many, knowledge of this conflict comes through an American perspective in movies and other sources. For our Vietnamese friends and neighbours, this tragedy was intensely personal and represented the loss of everything dear to them.In those final days of the war, as the outcome became increasingly clear, many families in the South Vietnamese military and those with the means to travel fled the country to find safety abroad. Those who left in 1975 represented the first major wave of Vietnamese immigrants to arrive in our country.Doctor Kien Le, President of the local Vietnamese Association of Toronto (VAT), was part of that first wave at age 12. Though many years have passed, Doctor Le still has vivid memories of the war's final days, "My father was a high ranking officer in the South Vietnamese Fleet. On April 29, 1975, the day Saigon fell, my family was aboard a battleship. When we heard word that the presidential palace was overrun, we knew the country was lost."That day, Doctor Le's ship and many others regrouped at an American base in the Philippines. From there, families boarded a cargo ship headed to a military camp in Guam where they would wait for months as the international community decided their fate.In July 1975, Doctor Le's family arrived in Toronto, first living in a downtown hotel where he keenly remembers the excitement of seeing his first Caribana Festival. His family moved to the city's east-end where they rented the second floor of an Italian-Canadian family's home and enrolled in the local catholic school. He still recalls the support his family received from a Canadian family, the Catholic Church and other community organizations during their transition into a new life.Today, Doctor Le is an accomplished medical doctor and an active volunteer within the Vietnamese community. In February, the VAT co-hosted a special Lunar New Year event at our local Northwood Community Centre that memorialized the 50-year anniversary of the Tet Massacre where the Vietnamese communists' violation of a ceasefire led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. Through his efforts with the VAT, Doctor Le hopes to make a difference in the lives of Vietnamese-Canadians while speaking for human rights and freedom in Vietnam.The second wave of Vietnamese immigrants began in the late 1970s. Fleeing the communist regime, families risked their lives in small boats on the open seas.Andrew Dang, a volunteer with the local North York Vietnamese Canadian Seniors Association, was part of this second and much larger wave of Vietnamese immigrants. At age 6, Andrew's family sold everything they had to pay for a cramped trip on a camouflaged fishing boat, "There were 91 of us on a small boat. We spent three days at sea without proper food and were robbed clean of our few remaining belongings by pirates. Most families who attempted this dangerous journey never reached shore. We were the lucky ones." he recalls.His family arrived in a refugee camp in Thailand. For six months, they lived on the generosity of the locals and international donations until landing in Montreal in 1980 and moving to Toronto shortly thereafter. Andrew recognizes the sacrifices made by his parents, "They worked long hours in factory jobs so my brother and I could have a better future."The North York Vietnamese Canadian Seniors Association meets on the weekends at Grandravine Community Centre to socialize, exercise and play chess. They are also taken on field trips to enjoy the natural beauty of our province. Andrew is a proud volunteer of this association of which his father was a former president, "Our older generation sacrificed everything for their children and grandchildren. It is their time to relax after so many difficult years."In 2015, the dangerous journey that millions of Vietnamese families undertook following the end of the Vietnam War was commemorated in Parliament as Journey to Freedom Day Act. This worthy recognition received all-party support and celebrates both the role Canada played in welcoming refugees as well as the important contributions that the Vietnamese community has made here in their new Canadian home.