Regent Park TV - Election Wrap, Back to School, COVID and more

By Fred Alvarado
(Fred is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

Welcome to RPTV Weekly News Show Episode 3. In this weekly news show hosted by RPTV reporters, Fred Alvarado, Murphy Brown and Humaira Rahman, we present news that impacts on Regent Park and other surrounding communities located in the Down Town East communities of Toronto. Episode three for the week of September 14, 2021 to September 19, 2021 features segments on: Ontario Back to School; Virtual Toronto Centre All-Candidates Meeting along with Federal Election Analysis; a poll that shows that the majority of Canadians are against racism and feel it is an issue; and a report on the Truth and Reconciliation Holiday.  This week’s news also features reports on events in the Regent Park area.  The following is a summary of some of the issues covered in this week's news.

ONTARIO BACK TO SCHOOL Report
Nothing better as the first day of school. As hundreds of Regent Park resident kids went back to in-person classes at Nelson Mandela Park Public School last Thursday, parents felt excitement and mix of emotions about returning to school amid the Covid-10 pandemic.

During first week of school: Toronto Public Health says it is investigating 23 schools due to COVID-19Toronto Public Health says it is conducting "public health investigations" at 23 Toronto schools due to COVID-19.

In a news release on Monday, TPH said it will reach out to close contacts linked to the  investigations. The schools include elementary, middle and secondary, public and Catholic,  English and  French schools.  TPH  said it is monitoring all COVID-19 activity in school settings now that students have returned to class in person.

"COVID-19 and the more infectious  delta variant continue to circulate in Toronto," TPH said in the release.

The public health unit didn't define in the release what a public health investigation entails, but it said it declares an outbreak when there are two or more confirmed COVID-19 cases in students or staff in a school within 14 days.

That means the infection of at least one case could have been acquired in school, including during transportation and at before and after school care, TPH  said.

As for active outbreaks in schools, the list of schools currently in outbreak can be found on TPH's active outbreaks dashboard, under the  ‘Schools’ tab.

WHERE ARE THE NEW COVID-19 CASES IN ONTARIO?

Ontario health officials are reporting just under 600 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday as well as seven more deaths due to the disease.

Most of the new cases were found in parts of the Greater Toronto Area. Officials reported 116 new cases in Toronto, 67 new cases in Peel Region, 46 new cases in York Region and 13 new cases in Durham Region.

According to the province’s epidemiology report, of the 577 new infections reported on Tuesday, 97 cases were identified in children under the age of 12.

LEADER’S DEBATE ANALYSIS WITH ST. JAMES TOWN RESIDENT  MURPHY BROWNE

The federal party leaders traded barbs between themselves and, at points, with the moderators during Thursday night's leaders' debate — and nearly a third of Canadians watching at home have no idea who won, according to a Vote Compass question of the day.

This civic engagement tool, which is running on CBC News and Radio-Canada throughout the campaign, asked users who they think won based on what they saw, heard and read.

About 32 per cent of participants who watched the debate said they didn't know who came out on top.
Of those who did pick a winner, Conservative Erin O'Toole came first with 21 per cent and Liberal Justin Trudeau came second with 18 per cent.

The lack of a knockout punch in the English debate — one day after the French-language debate also failed to produce a clear winner — is likely to keep the election close in the days leading up to the Sept. 20 vote.

"None of the leaders was able to leverage the debate to win the hearts and minds of their opponents," said Clifton van der Linden, an assistant professor of political science at McMaster University and chief executive officer of Vox Pop Labs, the organization that runs Vote Compass.

According to Vote Compass's results, about 42 per cent said Thursday's debate wouldn't influence their vote, compared to 30 per cent who said it was very likely to inform the way they cast their ballot. Men were more likely than women to say it wouldn't change their mind — 45 per cent, compared to 39 per cent of women.

Those who indicated they intend to vote for the Green Party were most likely to say the debate would factor into their decision.
More than half of those who indicated they plan to support the Bloc Québécois also said the debate wouldn't sway their decision, even after leader Yves-François Blanchet's tense exchange with the moderator over Quebec's Bill 21.

Those who went into the debate having chosen a party were more likely to say their preferred leader won the debate. But not all of the leaders enjoyed strong reviews from their supporters.

Vote Compass results show NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is seen as the most competent and trustworthy leader overall; 39 per cent of people who intend to vote NDP say he won the debate. Another 38 per cent of NDP supporters said they did not know who won.
According to 66 per cent of those who indicated they plan to support the Conservatives, O'Toole won the night. About 52 per cent of Green supporters said Paul won.

About 47 per cent of Liberal supporters said Trudeau won the debate, while another 34 per cent of Liberal supporters said they did not know who won.

Van der Linden said O'Toole's perceived success may be buoyed by the fact that his party has climbed in the polls since the election was called.

"It's often the case that supporter of a party that appears to have momentum in the polls [is] more satisfied with the performance of the party leader they support," he said in an email.

"My suspicion is that Liberal and NDP supporters were hoping that their candidates were going to knock it out of the park and spur a major shift in current polling trends. The results probably reflect their disappointment that this doesn't appear to have happened."

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in Canada exclusively by CBC/Radio-Canada. The findings are based on 2,627 respondents who participated in Vote Compass on Sept. 9.

Regent Park residents are calling on all federal candidates seeking to represent Toronto Centre to support and fund a Community Benefits Agreement for phase 4 & 5 of development of Regent Park.

The Regent Park coalition has requested a response from all the federal candidates during a  time of great urgency to support  the community and fund a trilateral community benefits agreement endorsed by Toronto Community Housing Corporation, Tridel and the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association.
The federal government is an important partner and funder for an important public and community revitalization  project and responsible for investing in community priorities during the midst of a pandemic and economic downturn.

Mr. Walied Khogali who has worked with many residents to call for a community benefits agreement is deeply concerned with the lack of hard targets for local employment, no financial incentives for home ownership and no new sustainable funding for important community programming and mentorship.

The Regent Park Coalition is working with stakeholders to create long-term opportunities for residents to generate both social and financial wealth in Regent Park. 

The community benefits movement aims to ensure that the main purpose of economic development is to bring measurable, permanent improvements to the lives of affected residents, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, encouraging all stakeholders in the public sector to play a more strategic role in land use planning and urban growth, and to leverage economic development subsidies toward the creation of good jobs, affordable housing, and neighborhood services that improve the quality of life for all residents.

The vast majority of Canadians are against racism and acknowledge it as an issue in Canada:

The vast majority of Canadians are against racism and acknowledge it as an issue in Canada, though about two-thirds of all non-white Canadians say they have experienced it themselves, according to a new poll.

Those results come just ahead of the 2021 federal election -- an election with platforms that, according to some advocates, do not have a strong enough push against anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism as well as a commitment to police reform in Canada.
Sandy Hudson, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada, said that the lack of attention coming to these issues in terms of party policies and platforms was not only "extremely frustrating," but "telling" of parties' values. Though most of the major federal parties have included racism and discrimination in several sections of their platform, outlining some call to action to tackle the racial issues, Hudson says what they currently have is not nearly enough or substantive.

The fact that the Black Lives Matter movement still has not been able to penetrate political barriers in Ottawa speaks to a "crisis of democracy" in Canada, said Hudson. She raised questions on why anti-Black racism, or racism policies in general, were not a large platform piece in the federal leaders' agendas despite the massive BLM protests last year. “How do you have an issue through which so many people take so many actions ... during a pandemic, going out to demonstrate ... and that’s not one of your flagship things that you’re dealing with," she said. "What is it going to take for them to care? It's something that's pretty disgusting to have a system where people ... put so much energy into saying this is a priority for us and for them all to just really gloss over it ... or ignore it altogether."

Meanwhile, the poll done exclusively for Global News by Ipsos found that 96 per cent of all Canadians say that racism is a “terrible thing.”

Just over a quarter of Canadians say they have been a victim of racism personally, though that proportion skyrockets to 65 per cent for Canadians who identify other than white.

Darrell Bricker, the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, said that there has been a "sea change" on the issue of racism as a whole throughout Canada.

'It's no longer a question anymore as to whether or not racism is a problem in this country and whether or not there needs to be change in order to deal with it," said Bricker.

"But I still recognize, as the people in the surveys do, that there's a significant problem and other people are experiencing it. The polling also revealed distinct differences in gender, age and region when it came to Canadians' experiences with racism.

Younger to middle-aged Canadians were more likely to say they've been a victim of racism in comparison to those aged 55 and older according to the poll, while men were more likely to say they've experienced racism as opposed to women.

Geographically, Canadians west of Quebec were more likely to say they have been a victim of racism, with around 30 per cent accounting in Ontario and Prairie provinces and almost one in four of all people in B.C. On the other hand, the majority of people in Quebec and Atlantic Canada say they have not been a victim of racism firsthand, with 57 per cent of people in those regions strongly agreeing that they've not experienced racism.

In addition, while over three-quarters of Canadians in most parts of the country say they strongly agree that racism is a "terrible thing," that sentiment drops slightly to 67 per cent in Quebec.

According to Bricker, Canada's change in attitude to system racism comes in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement -- as well as the push for Indigenous reconciliation. The majority of the Canadian population -- the strong majority of the Canadian population -- believes that this is wrong and it's something that something needs to be done about it.," said Bricker.