Thank you, Minister. I'm happy to have you here today, and I was very happy to have you in my community over the weekend to talk with members of my community because, as everyone here knows, my community was directly impacted by gun violence in a public space, when there was a mass shooting on July 22. Then, a month to the day after that, along the Danforth again, there was another shooting where a life was lost, so it's an issue that is very much in the hearts of many people in my community.
The town hall meeting we had was very interesting. I see that part of your mandate letter involves responding to gang activity and involvement in gangs. We had some experts speaking. We had Mr. Louis March from Zero Gun Violence Movement, who spoke about the need to “ban poverty” and to address poverty.
Professor Scot Wortley from the University of Toronto talked about how a lot of people who were present at the town hall who were against any further restrictions on handguns were pushing for stronger laws and deterrents, but he said people have to have something to lose for deterrents to work. We really have to get to those root causes in communities that might turn people toward gang activity.
I was wondering if you could speak about the need to address violence in our communities and gang activity, and about the need to address the causes that were addressed by Mr. March and Professor Wortley.