Thank you.
The summer of 2005 was labelled as “the summer of the gun”, here in the city of Toronto, and I think in response to that, there has been a mobilization of a lot of resources behind prevention and bringing programs into our community.
Since then, a number of years have passed and a lot of the resources that were offered then in terms of preventive measures within our community are now drying up. As a grassroots organization working in the Scarborough area of Toronto, I think our major focus and the challenges we face moving forward are the sustainability of the work that has started.
I think people are starting to become complacent again. We've seen so many changes within our community that people are starting to forget exactly what brought us to this point. As a result, we're reverting to a lot of the conditions that created the mess we're in, in terms of our neighbourhoods today. I would hope to see, even at the federal and provincial levels, greater attention paid to the work that started in the last few years in our community, in terms of working to prevent youth crime and youth violence, and resources geared toward these organizations for us to work to sustain it.
Thank you.