Etobicoke North by FTGU
Partial transcript of interview:
In the Etobicoke North Stop the Cuts Committee, they have formed a coalition called Rexdale United to organize against the cuts to city services. I talked to Nigel Barriffe, an elementary school teacher and a member of the coalition, about their work.
Q: Can you tell me about the Etobicoke North community?
NB: The Etobicoke North has one of the highest unemployment rates of the 44 wards, one of the lowest average incomes – the average income is about $44,000. That information is available on the City of Toronto website. It’s a high mix of racialized people. You have a very large South Asian community from India, Pakistan. Then we have a very large African, East African, Somali, Horn of Africa, along with the English-speaking Carribean community.
Q: How has the community reacted to the cuts?
Q: How has the community reacted to the cuts?
NB: There have been a number of smaller groups that have come together under the banner of Rexdale United. So we have been doing a lot of door knocking, a lot of flyering and emailing to the community. We had over 100 residents that came out to a budget forum that was finally called by the councillor after receiving numerous phone calls from our constituents.
We went out and said these are the cuts that are on the table and they were quite obviously upset by it, such as reducing TTC service and at the same time increasing fares. Routes Martin Grove 46, Steeles 60, Islington are all major routes for the TTC and all major routes that service Ward 1 and Ward 2. Councillor Criscanti was hiding behind the fact that he did support getting rid of Transit City which was the opportunity for us to have ligt rail transit in our area. It would have been a huge service increase to our neighbourhood.
They were very upset by these cuts and it showed by the number of people that came out. During the elections, there were never that many people that came out to the electoral debates. There were quite a lot of people that came out to express their views.
A group of youth from Rexdale are doing a campaign to ask the councillors to ride the bus with them for a week. There were a few progressive councillors who said they were willing to take that challenge. Unfortunately our councillor Crisanti, I’m paraphrasing, he was basically saying look it’s not convenient. I can ride it with you for a day, but not for a week.
The youth replied back in another email, ‘That’s our point. It’s not convenient. So that’s why we shouldn’t be cutting back on services and increasing fares. If anything we should be decreasing fares and increasing service.’ It’s unfortunate that he did not take their challenge. It will be interesting to see whether he puts his hand on Jan 17th or not in support of the continued cuts to the TTC.
Q: How many people are involved in the committee?
NB: There have been 20 of us that have been working together on it. Everybody has been taking up different roles. It’s interesting to see how the tactics and strategies play out. None of us are full-time organizers. We either work full-time or we’re unemployed looking for work. We’re mothers or grandparents. We’re not professional organizers by any means. We’re citizens and we want the councillors to understand that the cuts he’s making to our neighbourhood are going to disproportionately affect communities like Rexdale.
The effects these cuts will have on Rosedale or Forest Hill are quite different from the effect it will have on Rexdale. When you close down a daycare centre like Greenholme Middle School, you lose those daycare spots, those are affordable daycare spots. People who have the lowest average income in the city, don’t have those resources to go out and pay the regular price for day care.
We have the Rexdale Community Health Centre that offers a lot of senior programs that I understand with a 10% reduction across the board means reducing the number of services that are being offered to the seniors in our neighbourhood. That’s what at stake here for us at Rexdale United and the community members that I’m working with.
Q: Why is it important that we stop these cuts?
NB: We've done the priority neighbourhood investment. The investment in childcare, the investment in transit city, the providing of decent jobs that provide a living wage – that’s called city building. That’s what makes a great city that it is. You have in my opinion a Tea Party mentality, a very right wing, hegemonic, neoliberal agenda, an ideological agenda that is being pushed down on us. We know that because there’s actually a surplus. So there’s no actual reason to cut these services. They have the money, but they’re choosing not to save these services. It’s ideological warfare that’s going on. That’s why it’s important for groups like Stop the Cuts to build coalitions, to build community groups, to build a grassroots movement that’s going to push back against this ideological warfare that’s coming down against our community.
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