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Newsstand: January 30, 2015
January is often considered the most depressing month of the year, and we're almost out. Pat yourself on the back. In the news: Toronto is the best city to live in, domestic violence services have a long way to go, and 20 per cent of TDSB schools are at risk of closure.
According to the Economist, Toronto is the best city in the world in which to live. It’s also among the 10 safest. Montreal came in second for best city. The criteria included safety, liveability, cost of living, business environment, degree of democracy, and food security. Montreal and Toronto were the only two Canadian cities included in the survey, which covered 50 cities around the world.
The head of the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee says the deaths of public health nurse Zahra Abdille and her two young sons were preventable. Founded after the 1996 murder of Arlene May, the committee has issued dozens of recommendations, and most of them still have not been implemented. If they had, Abdille and her sons might still be alive. An example of this is that Abdille actually left her husband in July 2013 and spent three weeks at a safe house. During that time she tried to obtain custody of her sons and a restraining order against her husband, but was turned down because she lacked some necessary documentation. A victim-first approach would see social workers stepping in to help women like Abdille navigate the bureaucratic red tape that can prevent them from leaving abusive partners.
Nearly one in five Toronto District School Board schools are at risk of closing due to falling enrolment. Of the board’s 473 elementary and junior high schools, 84 have 65 per cent capacity or less, and 46 of the 116 high schools have the same. However, some people point out that capacity is not the only measure by which to judge a school. Jennifer Story, TDSB trustee for Ward 15 Toronto-Danforth, said there’s a school in her ward that is below capacity because it serves at-risk students and students with special needs. Having a school serving specialized groups operating at full capacity would be difficult, to say the least. Story also cautioned against closing schools and selling land when population growth might make those schools viable in the near future. “Once we lose that land, we never get it back,” she said. “Anybody living in this city knows a neighbourhood can change on a dime and we have to take that into account.”