“Toronto is a kind of New York operated by the Swiss”

— Sir Peter Ustinov (1928-2004), 1987

Analysis by Letters To The Beast

Toronto radio station 680 News, a Rogers Media radio station which now brands itself as CityNews, recently reported on a Toronto gym which is now offering free self defense lessons for those who travel on public transit in Toronto.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/16/toronto-ttc-violence-public-transit-defence-course/

Toronto – as with most of Canada – was legendary for its safety and cleanliness. It was called “Toronto the good.”

Sadly, decades of unrestricted, open immigration along with with lenient criminal justice polices and a populace that has always been disarmed have caught up with them.

Those of us old enough to remember will recall that it wasn’t until 1984 when Bernhard Goetz, then 37, had finally had enough (along with the entire City of New York).

Goetz plugged four thugs who had tried to rob him on a subway train.

While Toronto’s transit isn’t as plagued by graffiti today as New York was prior to 1989, the crime has become just as proportionate. And for thugs in Toronto, it’s a free-for-all. They are safe to rob, to assault, even kill with confidence. Unlike New York, their victims in Toronto are unlikely to even have the means to fight back.

This photograph, taken in Orlando, Florida on April 26, 2017, would get your humble correspondent arrested in Canada even though the “gun” pictured is a Marksman .177 pellet gun, purchased at a Canadian sporting goods retailer (Canadian Tire).

Thugs in Canada need not worry about their victims being “armed” with toy guns, let alone the real thing.

Your humble correspondent trying out his newly acquired Taurus 9mm in Orlando, Florida, on April 22, 2020, five weeks before the George Floyd / B.L.M. / Antifa road show came to town.

Your correspondent’s domestic supervisor posing with her new Taurus.

The problem is not just related to Toronto.

Canadians have been historically loathe to embrace freedom. Whether it’s freedom of speech, freedom to defend one self, freedom of health care, freedom to keep as much as one’s own money as possible, such ideas are dismissed as “American style.”

Ironically, for decades, the Toronto Transit Commission and the left-wing politicians who run it have demanded more and more taxpayer funding, warning that failure to do would create an “American-style transit system.” And now, despite generous funding, an “American-style transit system” is exactly what they have. Just not in the way they expected.

Sadly, for Canadians, an opportunity to reverse their decline was missed during the Harper era (a theme covered extensively in previous Letters To The Beast posts). Despite having nearly a decade of conservative majority rule, Harper, nor his attorneys general (most notably Robert “Rob” Nicholson) never afforded Canadians the opportunity to defend themselves. This despite a tough-talking, “tough on crime” facade from Nicholson and “public safety minister” (and teenage horizontal jogging enthusiast) Victor “Vic” Toews.

After a string of pathetic leaders, Pierre Poilievre is finally saying all the right things as head of the Conservative Party of Canada. Poilievre has to keep his nerve and ignore his country’s corporate media. Stephen Harper did a good job of this and kept getting re-elected in the process.

What conservative politicians consistently fail to understand is that freedom is a winning issue. It’s when they try to appeal to a “bigger tent” that they lose their way, they lose elections and end up paving the way for Liberal rule (see Justin Trudeau.

Will Pierre Poilievre have the backbone to call for Canadians to be allowed to arm themselves? Will he call for conceal carry permits? Will he even go so far as to allow no-permit carry? In all three cases, probably not.

But good armed Canadians facing against armed bad people who, in many cases, aren’t even Canadians, is the only thing that’s going to put the brakes on the violence.

Even the most leftist of left-wing Canadians (which would be most of them) would do well to remember that the most vociferous, anti-gun politicians are, themselves, surrounded by heavily-armed security.

Take it from this Canadian living in Florida: An armed society is a polite society.

Canadians need to snap out of it. Because it’s only a matter of time before somebody really does snaps, just like Bernie Goetz.

The correspondent, a private-sector bus driver in Orlando, Florida, was a long time transit worker in Toronto before re-locating in 2017.

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