BS! I lived in Toronto for 30 years. It's nice but just as much wierd shit happens there as anywhere else. Canada has its fair share of whackos.

I live in SoCal now and there is no one puking on my steps, vandalizing my car or other nonsense. Crime here is very condensed and usually restricted to family or other crimes. I have not seen a disproportionate number of random acts of violence in the two years I've been here. I lived through the Bernardo thing and assorted other sicko nonsense. I was there when cops killed blacks and have been to the ghettos in Jane/Finch and Regent Park/Moss Park. Scarborough is a shit hole. The Scarborough Rapist (aka Bernardo) raped 40+ women at bus stops. Gangs of kids kick the shit out of subway patrons just for laughs.

When I lived in Toronto I had my house broken into twice, my office once and my driverside window smashed with a hammer (I know this because the passenger side window had a big hammer mark in it) all in the span of a year. Here I've never had a problem, I don't even lock the door sometimes.

It's easy to paint a place black with a few stereotypical words. If all you ever knew about TO is what you read here it wouldn't sound too good either. Crime and violence is everywhere, whether you choose to see it or not.

 

LOL!!

I won't even get in this discussion, and I' just very happy to be 26 without having ever lost any friend from gun-related crimes, without even having actually SEEN a gun, apart from the ones carried by cops, and without having heard a single gunshot in my life...

 

C3, I also lived in Toronto from 90-94 (Bayview - Sheppard), and in my opinion it is one of the safest, most integrated multicultural societies in the world. My wife is Japanese, and as you probably know Japan has virtually no crime whatsoever to speak of, however, she still felt safer and more accepted as a person in TO than anywhere (and we have lived in, and travelled to most countries in the world).

On the one occasion I took the family to LA (I've been there many times as an individual) we stayed in a motel in Santa Monica. On our second morning, my wife pulled back the curtains to see a SWOT team outside with a dozen guns trained on the room next door where an escapee was apparently staying. She immediately closed the curtains and waited for the action to finish (without incident - they got him without a shot being fired). So I guess each to his own but we sure thought Toronto to be much safer.

We were both very sad to leave TO and it was only for business reasons that we moved on. I have been back a couple of times and espec. miss the winters (I am NOT joking).

 

Aye Carumba!!!!!

Let me back track a little. I didn't say TO. was a crime free haven. Ofcourse we got our share of whackos Since some of you know Toronto, I can narrow it down a bit. I live in Newmarket which is 30 miles north of the city. and its a (releativley) peacufull town. Although I do work at Wilson and Weston RD. I spitting distance for the armpit of Toronto....Jane and Finch. It,s not as rough as it used to be, but I still don't make eye contact.

I wasn't saying, or even trying to imply that the place where the story happened was any worse, nor any better then Toronto. However back to my first post, there is a disticntly different mindset of the people, between here and there. It's kinda hard for me to rebut anything with out making generalizations, or making this a bigger hole then I'm in.

However if my saying " Things are a little different where we live" prompted this, I would have to say it is...To some degree. But know I'm babbling.
So that's my take on it.

Mike

 

Just stirring up the shit a bit that's all Mike. This is OT after all.