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Dying young in Toronto

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Toronto's problem with gun violence is bad enough without having interest groups exaggerating and distorting it for political gain.

Forty-eight of Toronto's 70 homicides so far this year have been gun deaths; the latest was the murder of Amon Beckles, 18, shot while attending the funeral of his best friend Jamal Michael Hemmings, who was 17 when he was killed a few days earlier. Police are seeking another youth in the Beckles case.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has never encountered a hugely complex problem he did not want to make his top priority. Mr. Martin had already pledged $50 million over five years to address Toronto's gun problem. Now he's agreeing to participate in a "high-level summit" of federal, provincial and municipal leaders with representatives of black community groups.

"The fact that almost 50 young black men have died is a national crisis," says Sandra Carnegie-Douglas on behalf of the Coalition of African Canadian Organizations, which extracted the promise from Mr. Martin.

No, it is not. It is a Toronto crisis, with its epicentre in one northwestern neighbourhood.

The same fallacy underlies other extreme responses to the epidemic of shootings in the Jane-and-Finch district -- Rev. Al Bowen, the Beckles family's pastor, calls on Mr. Martin to send in the army. Ms. Carnegie-Douglas's coalition has previously advocated separate schools for black children and public subsidy for black entrepreneurs.

The solution lies in the opposite direction: making black youths more a part of their communities, not less.

The monstrous social-housing projects in northwest Toronto physically separate many poor black youths from economic and social opportunities. Their alienation is reinforced by music and movies, marketed directly to them, that teach that drugs, violence and misogyny are the keys to material pleasure. Many of their parents set poor examples, such as those who responded to the sexual-assault charges against black students at Cardinal McGuigan school (on Finch Avenue just east of Jane Street) by immediately accusing the police of racism.

Pastor Andrew King, at whose church Mr. Beckles was shot on Friday, gave a thundering sermon the next day, telling his flock that the solution to violence in their district is in their hands.

He's right. The shooting won't stop until parents take responsibility for their children's upbringing and values, find ways to trust police to solve old crimes and prevent new ones, and tirelessly condemn violence.

There is a role for government, too. Social-housing projects that concentrate pathological poverty should be eliminated. Police must strive to be part of the community, instead of an anonymous force that descends upon it only when someone has done wrong. Queen's Park should meet at least one of the African-Canadian coalition's demands: moderating the Safe Schools Act, whose zero-tolerance philosophy writes children off too easily.

None of this will be as easy as the sloganeering that has characterized the "discussion" so far. The people now living in the most fear will have to take the most risks. But the alternative, more deaths and deepening chaos, is much worse.