Toronto Mayor John Tory is asking for a meeting with the city’s police and largest school board to address recent violence in schools after the stabbing of a Grade 12 student Monday.
Toronto police said Birchmount Park Collegiate in the city’s east end was placed on lockdown Monday afternoon as officers responded to reports of a stabbing inside the high school just after 3 p.m. as students were being dismissed for the day.
The force said a 17-year-old student found with apparent stab wounds was taken to hospital where he remained as of Tuesday morning in critical but stable condition.
The stabbing comes two weeks after a shooting outside Woburn Collegiate Institute, another high school in the east end, left one student dead and injured another.
Tory says he is seeking a “high priority” meeting once newly-elected school board trustees are settled in office to look at what can be done to prevent such violence.
Birchmount Park Collegiate reopened today and police have not yet released information about possible suspects as the investigation is ongoing.
In an interview with Global News, Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said schools “should be the safest places in our community.”
“No parent should ever be fearful when they send their kids to school that it might be unsafe,” he said.
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Blair noted, however, that there have been recent incidents of violence in schools.
The minister, who represents Scarborough Southwest, pointed to Monday’s stabbing incident, and a recent shooting at Woburn Collegiate Institute.
“When there’s an act of violence on school property, I think it does create a responsibility for all of us to do everything necessary to keep our schools safe,” he said.
Blair said ensuring schools are safe is not just an issue for local governments.
“There’s also work that clearly needs to be done,” he said. “We’ve seen a fairly significant increase in the amount of gun violence taking place in Toronto and in all parts of our community.”
“When that violence gets to schools, I think it’s important for us to recognize the fear that that can create for families and for kids. Schools should be safe places,” he continued. “And I think fear is the greatest enemy of public safety.”
He said children “shouldn’t have to worry about their safety.”
“I would hope that that will deepen the resolve of all orders of government, for our police services,” he said. “And for those responsible for the education of our kids to work collaboratively together to deal with the threat of violence in our schools.”
Blair said there are a “number of reasons and social conditions” that “give rise to violence” in communities.
“That’s something that we definitely know we need to address,” he said, adding that all orders of government are making significant investments to support programming to create safer environments.
“But incidents like we saw this week and even earlier this year, where violence does come to our schools, I think needs to deepen all of our resolve to work more collaboratively together and more effectively to keep our community safe,” he said.
Blair said the federal government is bringing new legislation forward to strengthen gun control, but conceded that there is “work to be done.”
Anna Sidiropolous, a mother of two children at Birchmount Collegiate Institute and a school council member, said she has been left feeling “upset,” and “frustrated” after Monday’s incident.
“I’m feeling sad,” she said. “I’m feeling that as a community that we have failed our children — all of us- — the Toronto District School Board, the local government, the provincial government, the federal government, the parents.”
She said more needs to be done “proactively” to address violence in schools.
Sidiropolous said the school should identify what in its safety plan didn’t work.
“What did we put into effect and what more do we have to do because obviously that didn’t work,” she said.
She said the board should also reach out to police, and to all levels of government for help.
“You can’t just wait,” she said. “You have to be proactive.”
-with files from Global News’ Catherine McDonald and Hannah Jackson
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