Unprovoked Attacks on Canada's Transit System

Aidan Cheung (G6)

Current Events

Published Issue 5 2022-2023

In the past few weeks, there has been a spike in unprovoked attacks along Toronto’s Transit System. The most recent of these attacks was the killing of an elderly woman near the Toronto downtown core. While the spotlight has mainly been on Toronto these past few weeks, it is as much a major problem on Vancouver’s own transit system; for example, a same-sex couple was verbally assaulted on the SkyTrain recently. Thankfully, the culprit of that incident turned themselves in a little while later. Last year, The Metro Vancouver Transit Police investigated about 31,913 files, around 87 incidents a day.

While the current spotlight has been on Toronto, there have been similar incidents in Vancouver. Going back to the verbal assault of a same-sex couple on the SkyTrain, Qmunity, a mental health resource center for trans, gay, and other members of the LGBTQ2SQIA+ 

community reported a 23% spike in need for their resources. Michael Robach, manager of development and communications for Qmunity, said it was tough watching the video of the incident because it happens to other LGBTQ2SQIA+ members, both in the real world and online. “People behind a keyboard feel like they can just say anything to anyone without any consequence,” said Robach on cyberbullying and hateful messages online. "The reality is, when you read hateful comments it validates insecurities that you already have inside your mind."

These attacks in Toronto on the train lines have been somewhat focused on transit employees and workers. “Transit isn’t cheap anymore for the riders. We need to look at competitive and fair ticket prices for people to get on them. It’s just becoming so unaffordable to live in our cities, and people are frustrated,” De Nino commented, talking about inflation and speculating how it is affecting the mental health crisis in Toronto and Vancouver as well. To help circumvent the issue and the attacks, John Tory, mayor at the time, announced in early January that he planned to hire 200 new police officers and 50 special constables to add on to the recent bonus of 80 transit police officers along Toronto’s transit line.

While all these attacks are unprovoked, there is enough variety between them to say that these are not part of a greater crime organization/scheme. Rather, experts associate the incidents with a greater mental health crisis, addictions, and repeat offenders. Toronto’s transit system was shaken by a string of unprovoked attacks; people pushed onto tracks, swarmings, the list is getting longer every few weeks. "Just putting police officers on the front lines is not enough,” said John Di Nino, the national president of the Amalgamated Transit 

Union (ATU), Canada.

While these attacks are alarming, they are quite rare in the big picture. The statistics of incidents like these are few and far between. Scot Wortley, professor at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto compared it to winning the lottery. “The chances of winning the lottery are extremely low but we still play it. The chance of us being the victim of an unprovoked stranger crime is extremely low, but it still could happen” he said.

So what should we make of all this? Though we should definitely be more cautious, these attacks should not be top-of-the-mind concern for most people. Things people can do include being with someone when you take transit, especially at night, have a list of emergency numbers in case, tell people where you are going, and also make a note of the transit police’s emergency and non-emergency numbers, 911 and 604-515-8300, respectively. This crisis has shaken up some people, but the only way we know how this crisis plays out is to wait and see.