Toronto City Council Endorses Disaster Declaration
Graeme Bacque (gbacque@idirect.com)
Wed, 28 Oct 1998 15:13:58 -0500
The campaign to have Canada's homeless situation declared a national
disaster took a significant step forward this morning when Toronto City
Council voted overwhelmingly to endorse the disaster resolution.
Earlier on some three hundred members of the Toronto Disaster Relief
Committee and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty had gathered outside
Metro Hall for a pancake breakfast before heading inside to the Council
chambers. The crowd grew to standing room only as Council at first
appeared to be stalling over their initial housekeeping items, ( in the
middle of prioritizing their agenda (which involved reciting a lot of
numbers) someone in the audience yelled "Bingo!" and drew a roar of
laughter from the other spectators) then the motion to endorse the
disaster declaration was presented by councilor Jack Layton
Following a surprisingly brief debate (the brevity was guaranteed by the
audience, which pressured council to proceed immediately to a vote, and
ruthlessly jeered Toronto mayor Mel Lastman, who is notorious for his
buck-passing and antagonistic remarks aimed at homeless persons) a
number of related motions were brought forward and approved by council.
The main resolution - in support of having Canada's homeless situation
declared a national disaster, and to apply pressure to Provincial and
Federal levels of government to provide immediate relief, just as they
would in the event of a natural catastrophe (such as last winter's
devastating ice storm in eastern Canada, or the flooding in southern
Manitoba in the spring of 1997) was passed by a vote of 53 to 1. Toronto
council also backed a plan to obtain endorsements from the governments
of other Canadian municipalities
The campaign to have homelessness declared a national disaster started
in the spring of this year, and has since been endorsed by hundreds of
organizations and individuals from all over Canada. For more information
or to offer your endorsement contact Cathy Crowe at <crowe@web.net>.
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Graeme Bacque <gbacque@idirect.com>
<http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/1962>
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'Sanitarium, leave me be,
Sanitarium, just leave me alone'
--Metallica, from their album Master of Puppets
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