Well good morning
and just before we get to the
business of the day I should say
of course that in the last
few minutes we've received I think
what is excellent news but a
challenge for us here in the City of Toronto
namely the
news release indicating that the Premier
will announce later today that
Toronto has been moved to Stage 3 effective
midnight 12:01 a.m. on Friday morning.
And I think this is as a result of
a lot of hard work by Torontonians and
our frontline workers
that we'll be able to move to this
next stage.
It seems like a long way from the scary
days of the winter when we were having
our meetings at the beginning of the pandemic
and hearing numbers that
were almost beyond comprehension in
terms of both actual
case counts but also projections as to
how many people
could lose their lives or become ill.
But I think we've always said throughout the
piece that if we could work together and
by working together I mean
principally people are working with each
other in the City of Toronto but also
governments working together,
governments supporting people and
businesses as they have done.
That you know we could come the long way
that we've come and it's taken a long time
and it's taken a lot of patience and sacrifice.
But I think it's also fair to say that
now the hard work really begins.
The hard work really begins now because
when you get down to the stage where
you have one new case on a given day
which was the case yesterday.
There's only one direction to go and you
don't want to go in that direction but
there is only one well I suppose you
could go down to zero and we hope that
happens but uh after that we've just got
to stay vigilant and
making sure we continue to follow the
Public Health advice in in the light of
the new freedoms granted by Stage 3
is going to be crucially important and
yes that's going to involve government
but more than anything else it's going
to involve continued effort
on the part of individual people to make
sure that we
together keep wrestling this thing to
the ground and and keep it there.
COVID-19 doesn't go away just because
we're in Stage 3.
In fact the onus on us to make sure it
continues to go away and stays away
is going to be more so than ever on all of us.
We had just one new case in our city
yesterday and we want to continue with
that kind of result and that kind of progress as we
move to a greater reopening.
And we just don't want to go backwards
and that's going to depend on yes
continued effort by government continued
leadership by all governments and
cooperation
but also people deciding that they're
going to continue to demonstrate the
good personal responsibility they have
demonstrated.
The province will have more
to say on this later today and so will the city.
But I wanted to acknowledge this good
news as well as the acknowledgement
that's in the Premier's press release
indicating that a number of the
additional health-related recommendations
that we've made to make
sure that bars and restaurants and
places like that can stay healthy
have been taken into account by the
government and they've said they
themselves will have something to say
about that later today.
So uh the business of the day that we're
here to address today,
Deputy Mayor Michael Thompson or
myself and I should say that this entire
program that we're about to launch today
in reality by actually granting some of
the money for the first year of its existence
it was something that was found in the
budget for the city of 2020 and
approved as brand new money.
But it really came from a conversation
that I had with the Deputy Mayor and with
some experience he had in one of the
neighbourhoods in his own
ward and it proves that I think you can take
a community-based idea that came from
the community and by the community and
of the community that their local
representative can
bring it here talk to me we can talk to
our city staff and here we are
not too long after that making this
program a reality.
The violence as we know has been an ongoing
 issue in our city for some time
it's been a challenge that growing cities
like Toronto all across the world have
had to confront.
We have not been immune to the
increasing gun violence that
is being seen in cities across Canada
the trend lines are there
elsewhere in Canada but also of course
across North America.
It's an issue that impacts residents and
neighbourhoods in a very profound way
they're the traumatization that it
causes to people who are not directly
involved in incidents of violence cannot be
dismissed in fact it is a very serious matter.
And requiring and addressing it requires
immediate attention.
Addressing it is something that I've
been committed to
throughout the time that I've been the mayor.
We've made financial commitments
to increase
investments in community organizations
and city programs,
along with continued advocacy to other
levels of government
because we can't do this alone
continued advocacy to other levels of
government for increasing investment on
their part but also for changes to some
of the laws like bail laws.
I've said many times in the past, that
addressing violence will take a
multi-pronged approach by all
governments with a huge emphasis on increased
investment in kids and families.
We know that by investing in kids and families
we can address the roots of gun violence
something we have
been urged to do time and time again by different
studies that have been undertaken.
As a government, albeit one that has
limited sources of revenue
mainly from property taxes, we need to do
our best to invest in the
neighbourhoods that are being heavily
impacted by gun violence.
While we need more help, we have to
come forward and do what we can
with what we have,
with more to come from the city for sure,
That is why in early May we launched
the Youth Violence Prevention Grant Program,
which was established this year in the 2020 budget.
This new program provides agencies with
the funding to support the de-escalation
of youth violence
within their own communities.
We are distributing approximately $2 million
in new annual funding to
community organizations for youth violence
prevention and intervention projects.
These local plans came from the community,
they were devised by the community,
and I think that will increase the chances
of their success.
The program will provide real, on the
ground help for a very real problem.
The money will be allocated
among the 12 community organizations to
implement programming in
10 different neighbourhoods identified as
Neighbourhood Improvement Areas
or revitalization sites across Toronto.
And these 10 communities were selected
for investment this particular
investment based on a
data-driven approach that identified
a high number of incidents that took
place in these areas.
The data was compiled from
the Toronto Police Service, from the
Focus Roundtable Organization,
from Toronto Community Housing and
from the Community Crisis Response Program CCRP.
We know all too well that the roots
of violence and community violence stem
from the inequities that some of
our residents face.
These factors often leave young people
and their families vulnerable and susceptible
to other challenges and barriers.
If they are not addressed and they're
left unattended, the inequities can easily
evolve into destructive forces, including
community violence.
And that is why we were so determined to
include these grants in the 2020 budget
as part of a number of new anti-violence initiatives
in that budget including $6 million in new
spending in 2020 alone as one year.
Today, we are announcing that the
community organizations that will
receive this critical funding
where they are and which organizations
they are
through this new youth violence
prevention program.
The applications have been vigorously reviewed
by city staff with outside help.
And it includes unusually some help from
young people actually residing in some
of those communities.
This is by no means the full list but a
few of the organizations that will be
receiving these grants include:
The Agincourt Community Services
Association
Culturelink Settlement and Community Services
East Scarborough Boys & Girls Club &
Next Generation Arts
The Flemingdon Health Centre
The Harriet Tubman Community Organization
and St. Steven's Community House
(of the neighbourhood group).
The programming will be aimed at
violence prevention and an interruption
for youth, aged 10 to 29.
It will include effective community
engagement approaches,
trauma-informed programming,
leadership development,
employment development and
mental health supports.
And these organizations and their
respective projects will focus on
working with young people who are more
vulnerable to serious violence and crime in
communities across the city.
Whether it's in Etobicoke or Scarborough
or North York or downtown
all communities in Toronto will have access
to these services and these supports.
The grant program will help us focus on the communities that need
additional support the most.
In the end it's about helping kids, it's about
helping families and it's about helping
neighbourhoods.
And so the agencies are partnering up
with their neighbourhoods, with their
communities and
they know their communities the best and
they're already at work on the ground
in those neighbourhoods and will
now be able to do more work to fight violence
with the young people and the families.
By providing them with the new funding
we know that people will get more help
and more help of the kind they need, quickly.
And we know it's important for this funding
to be delivered now.
There is no question but that the youth
of the city have been affected not only
by the violence which has been a problem
for some time but also profoundly
affected by COVID-19 and the impact that's had
on a number of areas of their lives.
And the two challenges combined have
only heightened
the level of need that we see across the city.
As we start to reopen vital services and
amenities like community centres, and
community pools and more to come
now that we've reached a Stage 3,
we need to find other ways to engage
vulnerable youth at a time
that has been exceptionally challenging
for them
as it has been for many people across the city.
So these grants are just
one more part
of our plan to address the challenge of
ongoing violence in the city.
We know that we can't stop here and we
won't stop.
The new funding is part of the more than
$16 million in new investments
that we announced in the 2020 budget
and that is on top of the millions of
dollars that we've invested in
poverty reduction
and other initiatives aimed at helping
people across the city.
We are doing our part with respect to
anti-violence initiatives.
And we know there's more needed but we
also know that we can't do it alone.
I'm confident that the other governments
understand the need to make more of
these investments and I will
continue to urge them to take action.
As recently as last night, I raised this
issue again with Minister Bill Blair of the
Government of Canada.
I've been clear that our repeated
requests for more federal assistance
with youth and
anti-violence funding in light of our
especially acute problems
is one of the very few instances in
which the federal government has not
provided the support the city requires
despite our continuous advocacy.
I will continue to call on the other levels of
government to join us in providing more
of this vital anti-violence funding.
I want to thank the community
organizations who are helping us right
now and who will be receiving this
funding for which they have applied.
And for which they had to fill out vigorous
applications.
I want to thank Deputy Mayor Thompson
for bringing forward this idea that had
its roots in Scarborough and that I think
has now been molded
into something that can have citywide
benefit for many many young people
across the city and have organizations
that we know
and that have passed the test do
effective work for us in fighting
and stopping gun violence.
It's going to take hard work, it's going to take
determination it's going to take engagement on the
part of young people which is what this
program is all about
but I think it can make a difference.
And I thank the community organizations
that have come forward for the work
they're going to do but
also for the work they have been doing
and will continue to do
in such an excellent way.
And I want to thank our city staff for the fact that
they have put these applications through a very
serious review process and I think that has
led to good selections and that will make a big
difference in the community.
We know that for a whole bunch of
reasons there is much that we must do to
make sure that
young people in these neighbourhoods and
across the city have
every opportunity to have as bright a
future as everybody else.
And this is a part of that and I do
again want to thank Michael Thompson for
his role in making this program come
about and ask him to come to the podium now
and say a few words.
>>Deuputy Mayor Thompson: Thank you
very much Mayor Tory
and before I begin my remarks I just want to
again reiterate my thanks to you we had
the discussion about this
idea that I had on behalf of a community
I want to say how committed you are in
terms of listening,
recognizing the need to help the
community, recognizing the need that
when we help our young people and create
an opportunity for them
to have a better future it really helps
all of us and so
you have from day one indicated a
willingness to listen
an appreciation with respect to the concerns in the community right across the city.
Your commitment and your leadership
is in in my view absolutely
beneficial to all of us and I want to thank you
seriously from the bottom of my heart
because I know
the challenges and the the impact
that the lack of investment
in our young people particularly black
kids in this city
is actually having on the families,
communities and in the city as a whole
and your willingness to listen I have to tell
you that I'm absolutely
thrilled and again thank you for that
because it's really important.
And I know that you know we're in difficult times and
some people will say where do we get all
this money from to be investing
in our young people but just think
about it if we don't invest in our young
people what is our future like?
It actually would not be good so I thank
the Mayor for his leadership.
The City of Toronto is committed to
putting programs and services in place
that supports residents in our various
communities across the city.
Because we cannot do this alone as the
mayor has indicated we are working closely with many
community organizations who are well
placed to address local needs.
Our Youth Violence Prevention Grants are
an example of how we in fact can help
these organizations to carry
out their essential community building
because this is really what this is all about
it's building community it's uplifting
them it's creating opportunity it's
creating hope it's giving kids and families a
better look at developing a better future and
growth and at the end of the day it benefits
all of us in this city of Toronto.
The organization selected to receive these grants
have proven track records
for working with youth most vulnerable
to involvement in serious violence and crime.
They were chosen by panels that include
youth from the identified communities
according to the
city's Youth Engagement Strategy.
Youth violence and safety are vital
to this demographic
so it makes perfect sense to engage this
impacted group as part of the process
part of the decision making
we learn a lot from them and we are
better to able to
put programs in place to actually help
them for better outcomes.
As the mayor mentioned the roots of
community violence stems from
inequities in our city from diminishing
social determinants
of health that often leaves residents
vulnerable.
Youth Violence Prevention Intervention
Programs are proven
effective ways to curb violence amongst
our young people
and this is extremely important for us
to take an approach
that recognizing what are the things
that are needed to help our young people
to stem and stare them away from violence.
We know all too often when we hear the
news another gun
incident another knife incident another
violent incident in this city
there are things that we can do and we
are doing
and as the mayor has indicated we will
be doing more to address these issues
because we will not allow them to go
uncheck to be left unchecked
means an unsafe city nobody wants an unsafe
city and everyone wants us to do
everything possible to help all of our
young people because they are in fact
our future and they are our
assets for growth and development in our society.
We're providing that leadership and an
understanding that undertaking in terms
of our collaboration with community
organizations to help to
make our community better.
So these programs through these programs
vulnerable young people are equipped
with the life skills they need to avoid
violence and crime and to make a
positive future and to make positive
choices for themselves.
At least one of these organizations is
in my ward and I'm looking forward to
working with the organizations but I'm
more importantly looking forward to
the positive impacts that will come from
these organizations involvement
with young people so the young people
will actually benefit and so those
impacts will have a great impact on all
young people in our community and impact
for all of us and the benefits for everyone.
So now I'll turn it back over to Mayor Tory
for questions. Mayor.
>>Lawvin: Thank you Mayor Tory, 
Deputy Mayor Thompson.
Good morning everyone thanks for joining us.
As a reminder it's one question one follow-up.
We also have Denise Campbell, Executive Director of Social Development Finance Administration
on the line to answer your questions.
First up we have Mark McAllister from
City News. Go ahead Mark.
>>Mark: Good morning. Two questions first
related to your announcement this
morning and then Mayor I don't know
if you have some of
the specifics from these organizations
or whether Denise on the phone might
have this but what were some of the things that
were submitted and ultimately were selected
to come forward what are these programs
going to be doing specifically with each
of these organizations?
>>Mayor Tory: I'll just give you some ideas
and Denise may want to
expand her but I have the material right
in front of me so
in the case of one that is being done by
Albion Neighbourhood Services they're
going to provide individualized case
management for
example and we found through the focus tables
this is a very effective way to take
people most at risk or
or sometimes highest risk and actually
work individually with them and bring a
whole lot of resources to bear on one
individual case to help keep those kids
you know on a better path. Another one
that I see here
is looking at kids who are out of high
school there are programs like
Pathways to Education that deal with kids that
are in school and keeping them in school
but there are kids who have dropped out
of school
and and they're at risk. Another one
talks quite a lot about
mental health and another one here
talks about diverting
kids who've been suspended or expelled
from school to local community-based
workshops that actually get people some
skills that they can put to work
and and improve their training.
So there's just a whole range of things
and the whole key here was that 
individual organizations from
individual communities that had
previously been identified as as
having higher incidents put their ideas
forward as to what would work best in
their neighbourhoods in their view.
And then the city staff obviously
looked at these to make sure that they were
sensible and realistic and and pick them
accordingly but I think that's the
really important part of this program is
as I said it's by the community of the
community and and and and put forward by
people from the community.
Denise did you want to add to that?
>>Denise: I think just additionally Mayor Tory
certainly some of the
applications include skill building and
training for young
people so particularly around things like
stem programming that young
people have asked for and supporting them
to create meaningful
employment opportunities which takes on
a particularly new meaning in
the economy as we find ourselves trying to
recover from COVID.
Mindfulness and mental health workshop
will be part of some of the proposals as
well as youth leadership training.
So it's really a range and as both Mayor Tory and 
Deputy Mayor Thompson
spoke about it's really responding to some
of the key things that young people
from those neighbourhoods have identified as
areas where they need support in order to
participate in achieving overall
community safety.
>>Mark: Thank you a follow-up question for Mayor Tory
obviously the first thing you addressed
this morning is the
announcement from the province that we're
expecting later today about moving
into Stage 3. From the news release that was sent
early this morning it seems as though the recommendations
coming forward form the city for additional
measures in Stage 3
will in fact be put in place is that correct?
and how are you feeling about the fact
that you've been listened to?
>>Mayor Tory: I just want to say that throughout this
entire pandemic I have listened
to the advice of our Medical Officer of Health and
the Premier of Ontario has listened to my
representations in that regard and to
the representations of our
Medical Officer of Health
I think the listening and the dialogue back
and forth has been excellent here
and this is just one more example of that.
Now we're going to proceed today to
implement the measures
because we don't yet have the details
and nothing has been finalized by the
province but they've been very
responsive in
a number of the areas we've put forward
we'll proceed with our own measures here
and then we can always deal with those
in a different way if it turns out
that there's some duplication because
the provincial order is always
preferable because it's it comes from a stronger
legislative base and is wider reaching but
I'm very happy that there has been this
continued dialogue not just on this but
all the way through this and I think
that's why we've had good results.
>>Lawvin: Thanks Mark. Next up we have
Jennifer Pagliaro from the Star. 
Go ahead Jennifer.
>>Jennifer: Good morning Mayor. I just wanted to
follow up on that because it's not exactly
clear to me from the Province's press
release they say they're
supportive of the recommendations.
That doesn't actually say that they're
ordering them for Toronto specifically.
So you're saying you don't have that
information but there is
perhaps a way that Toronto could implement
those on their own can you just clarify that.
>>Mayor Tory: We will proceed ahead today to put the
measures in front of city council just
to be sure that
these things are looked after from a local
perspective as far as we can go.
But as has been mentioned before there are
some areas where our legislative ability
is limited
or where we don't have any at all.
The only reason that I think we're all a bit uncertain as
yet on exactly what the province will be
doing though I think from our discussions
we know some of the things
they are likely to do and perhaps less likely
to do is because the actual approval of
those orders I understand
may not come until tomorrow.
And so in that sense I just I'm not
speaking with certainty about it because
I don't want to preempt
the decision-making process that has to
take place at Queen's Park involving the cabinet.
But our discussions have been complete
enough that I know that a number of the
things we've talked about
as to how we can make sure that for
example bars and restaurants remain
safe will be implemented by them some
others that may not be
we will do here to the extent we can at City Hall.
>>Jennifer: And obviously the Province has made the
decision that the
City can go ahead with reopening bars
and restaurants and I spoke to a few
epidemiologists and others yesterday and I
wonder if the city has
ever considered the possibility of not
opening bars and
restaurants at all in Stage 3 and instead
focusing for example on moving forward
with child care, schools
and other things that we know carry
additional risk almost everything in
Stage 3 carries
some additional risk and and why focusing
on bars and restaurants seems
to be a priority is mystifying to some of them.
Can you just  comment on that.
>>Mayor Tory: Well first of all I can tell you
because we have now been
briefed on some of the plans that are
almost complete with respect to the
reopening of schools and I don't want to
speak for anybody else except to say
that I think most people who have seen
those plans are impressed with them
and and they represent a huge effort
that has been made by the
Government of Ontario to get the opening
of schools right with
our help wherever we can help in a number of
respects including of course
especially on public health.
And so I think that while there's been more
public discussion
about bars and and in our case we've
said more about that because we have
jurisdiction to some extent or shared
responsibility for that which we don't
directly have for schools because of the
school boards that
have that responsibility but we
certainly care about it very deeply
and I would just say that since the bars
and restaurants
were going to open the minute theoretically
that we moved into Stage 3
it was an urgent matter that we have the safety
that goes with that the health safety looked
after from minute one and so we have
paid attention to that
and the province has listened and so I
would say that there's been
priority placed on all of these matters with
no lack of priority placed on school
reopening as I think we'll see in the
coming days when they announced their plans.
But we had to look after this other
matter as well of the bars and
restaurants to answer your first part of your
question we did have some discussion
about not having bars open at all.
And I will just say that there are
some practical
implications behind that what's a bar
versus you know what what isn't there
are many bars inside of restaurants.
We talked about about as well the
balancing act we've had to go through
with respect to everything we've done
through the pandemic which is that the
principle and
main focus has to be and is on public health
but we can't be ignoring the fact
that the economy
has a lot of people out of work and as
even the public officer
Medical Officer for Health herself has
said that can have
an impact on health in terms of people's
mental health and their ability to cope
with their lives if they're out of work and
continue to be out of work for a long time.
And so I think we've got this just about
right I mean I think we have delayed
a Stage 3 in consultation with the
province for for a time that I think is
very appropriate but
nonetheless we're moving forward to
try to bring the city back to something
approaching normal and that involves a lot of time
and attention spent yes on education but
it also involves time and attention
spent on the economy and elements of the
economy that employ a lot of people and
that are part of people's daily lives.
>>Lawvin: That's it for today.
Thanks everybody have a great day.
