By Arthur Weinreb
Friday, May 25, 2007
On Wednesday at around 2:40 p.m., police were called to the swimming pool area of C. W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in northwest Toronto. They thought they were responding to a possible drowning. When the first officers arrived they found 15-year-old Jordan Manners with a gunshot wound to his chest. His vital signs were absent and he was taken to Sunnybrook Hospital in an emergency run. Shortly after his arrival, Jordan was pronounced dead. The school was locked down while police ensured that the building was safe. At the time of this writing, the shooter has not been found.
Toronto City Council was in session that Wednesday afternoon and Mayor David Miller rose to inform the councilors as to what had just transpired. The mayor repeated much of what he said to council to CityPulse News a short time later.
Miller, ever the ideologue, wasted precious little time in pressing his political agenda in those few moments after Jordan Manners had passed away. He railed against guns, saying:
We need to redouble our efforts. Part of the redoubling of our efforts has to be dealing with the guns that are causing these tragedies. Guns are different than anything else. They're designed to kill.
All of this was said when there were no facts about the shooter, or how he came into possession of the gun that ultimately was used to kill Jordan.
The mayor also took this opportunity to pat himself on the back and talk about what a wonderful job he and his loyal followers on council have done in giving police the tools they need and about how they are giving "hope and opportunity" to young people.
Miller also spoke to council about mothers:
I have met with so many mothers in this city who have lost their sons to violence and it is impossible to console a mother in those circumstances…I also know that I speak for council when I say that none of us want to have to look in the eyes of another mother in this city, or another father, and say, "You've lost your child".
It was all about him. Me, me me! What was missing in his political diatribe to council on Wednesday was any acknowledgement of expressions of condolences to whom we have since learned is Lorraine Small, Jordan's mother or anyone in her family.
The reaction of Premier Dalton McGuinty to the shooting shows the way normal people react to situations such as this. McGuinty, who shares the same political philosophy as Miller does when it comes to guns, waited until the next day before bringing politics into the tragedy. Here is the statement that the premier issued on the afternoon of the fatal shooting:
It was with great sadness that I learned of the events that took place at C.W. Jefferys C.I. in Toronto earlier this afternoon.
On behalf of all Ontarians, I want to express my deepest sympathies to all those affected by this tragedy – the family and friends of the victim, students, parents and staff.
I also know I speak for all Ontarians when I condemn and deplore the violence we've seen here today.
I want the entire community at C.W. Jefferys C.I. to know that they are in my thoughts and prayers at this difficult time.
Short and to the point. A condemnation of the violence and condolences to friends and family. No politicking; the premier, as most people who can look beyond themselves, recognized that Wednesday afternoon was not the time for that. Notice how McGuinty sends his condolences to the family of Jordan Manners rather than talk about how difficult it is for him to meet mothers whose sons have been killed. David Miller's comments on Wednesday afternoon were disgusting; showing a stark inability to look at what had happened from anyone's vantage point other than his own. Kids like Jordan Miller and their families aren't real people – they're simply pawns to be used in the mayor's grand social experiments.
If Miller really cared, he would have left the council meeting and gone to C.W. Jefferys. Police Chief Bill Blair went to the school and it is difficult to believe that his presence was necessary from a policing point of view. Homicide investigators and the Emergency Task Force are professional enough and certainly experienced enough to have handled it without the Chief's presence. Blair showed up to make a statement; he showed leadership. Miller quite easily could have left a meeting that was dealing with such weighty issues as tax increases revenue tools and how to punish councillors Rob Ford and Doug Holyday for not spending enough of their office budgets. But he chose not to do so; the thought probably never even crossed his mind.
While former mayor Nathan Phillips was referred to as "the mayor of all the people" David Miller is the mayor of "very few of the people"; those who live in the downtown core and the Island and who share his socialist ideology. The mayor is rarely seen in the area of the city where C.W. Jefferys is found; where, you know, "those people" live. He was however, present at a vigil for Jordan last night where, according to the Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington, he did more politicking, whining about not getting enough money from the federal government.
In the moments after Jordan Manners was brutally gunned down in a place that he should have been safe, we had an opportunity to see the real David Miller –and it wasn't pretty.
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