The ongoing problem of Jamaican gangs in Toronto

Bruce Gold:

Toronto has a gang problem of serious and growing proportions. Like gang problems elsewhere it is proving difficult to control. Part of the difficulty is that gangs are no longer a bunch of local toughs on the street corner, gangs or a least serious drug gangs, are now very much organized crime. Organized crime is difficult to fight and when gangs are also embedded in ethnic and racial communities it makes the problem even more difficult to solve. Toronto's current difficulties with Jamaican gangs is no exception to this.

The public furor over the recent spate of shootings has not been driven merely by the fact that there were shootings. Drug gangs shooting each other up over drug turf has been going on in Canada for some time and as a general rule nobody gets that upset about it. What has driven public anger is the broad daylight, uptown nature of the shootings and the death of bystanders. This type of extreme violence is typical of Jamaican gangs and is a fact of life in Jamaica. This is the sort of violence that the British experienced in the 1980s when a wave of Jamaican immigrants came to the country. The “Yardies” and other Jamaican gangs, coming from a society where violent death was commonplace had unprecedentedly violent ways of “doing business”.

This is not new information, it is well recognized that immigrants bring the culture of the old country with them. In the vast majority of cases and customs this is not a problem and in many cases it is a positive addition to Canadian society. Regrettably, the few bad apples in the immigrant community also bring their culture and Jamaican gang culture is notorious for its extreme anyone, anywhere violence.

Unfortunately, instead of dealing with the problem, the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty would rather play politics. This is understandable: actually addressing this gang problem is virtually guaranteed to bring a storm of protest from the Politically Correct and political activists intent on creating an identity politics power base. The fact that Jamaican immigrants, all too familiar with Jamaican gang culture, are not in favor of these gangs carries less political weight. Indeed, it has become painfully obvious that the McGuinty administration has little faith in the sense and sensibilities of immigrants in general or the Jamaican community in particular. His policies assume that these communities are incapable of distinguishing between a crackdown on criminal gangs and a crackdown on the community.

Not having the political courage to address the actual problem the McGuinty administration has generated a number of “safe” surrogates. The first of these was shifting the focus from gangs to guns. Inanimate object, millions of which are present in Canada, suddenly became the “cause” of all the trouble. Just to make sure all the blame went elsewhere they then framed the issue as “American guns” which happily, are beyond their administration's jurisdiction and control. Allying himself with PM Paul Martin, Toronto Mayor David Miller and Toronto police chief Bill Blair, he claimed that 50% of the guns on Toronto's streets were from the US. When it was revealed that this figure was simply pulled from the air, McGuinty quickly dropped the matter.

With the failure of the American excuse the premier switched tactics and gun collectors became the new villains. Handguns, the inanimate “cause” of the problem would be banned and confiscated. The new villain would now be the “infamous gun collector.” Happily for Premier McGuinty there have been a number of high profile gun thefts from gun collectors to support this new agenda.

Even more happily, this turn of events has some political payoffs. The McGuinty administration can now blame the Conservatives for denying them jurisdiction to solve the problem, which shifts the blame to the Feds and the “gun lobby.” They can also use each new shooting and theft to develop a “wedge issue” for the Liberals to use. Best of all, the blame can be pointed at easy to target law-abiding gun owners rather than at the “Politically Incorrect target” of black gangs.

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