Minutes
of the monthly meeting held at Queen’s Park on July 11, 2005
Present:
Thomas
Saras
Neel
Nanda
Eva
Wasda
Srimal
Abeyawardene
Maxwell Wynter
Clyde
McNeil
Luba
Cherny
Hassan
Zerehi
Anne
Dawson
Kenrick
Bobb
B.
Ubale
Ahmed
Mohamed
Ahmed
Shah Hotaki
Iraj
Emad
Massood
Mashadi
Hasan
Yilmaz
Sunny
Sang
Ned
Blair
Sybille
F.Reintmeister
Majid
Johari
Josivaldo
Rodrigues
Abdul
Rahim
Cindy
Gu
Danielle
Zhu
Mohammad
Tajdolati
William
Doyle Marshall
Malkom
Kliff
John
Saraidaris
William
Doyle Marshall
Emmanuel
Ayiku
Emily
Mills
Cindy
Gu
Aris
Babikian
Teshome
Wordemmanuel
Tanya
Nutal
Absent
Elizabeth
Wolski
J.O.Maharaj
Mona Feng
Special
Guest: Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair
Agenda
Opening
Remarks by the Chair
Remarks
by the Police Chief, Bill Blair
Minutes
of the previous meeting
President’s
Report
New
Business
End
of meeting
Opening
Remarks by the Chair:
The
Chair, Clyde McNeil welcomed Chief Bill Blair to the meeting and invited
him to address the NEPMCC
Remarks
by the Police Chief:
Toronto
Police Chief, Bill Blair thanked NEPMCC for the opportunity provided by
the Council to reach the members of the organization.
He
introduced Mark Pugash, Director of Corporate Communications, Toronto
Police Service, to the Council. The highlights of his remarks were:
·
The role of NEPMCC as a facilitator to reach out to various
communities, working together with the Toronto Police Service to ensure
that Toronto remains a safe and livable city.
·
Developing a mutual trust between the various communities and
Toronto Police Service
·
Toronto Police Service is encouraging recruitment among youth from
the diverse community in the city.
·
Members can contact Mark Pugash, Director of Corporate Communications Toronto Police
service to seek any additional information on the various programs
launched by Police Service.
·
The importance of filtering out information, made available by the
Police Service catering to a specific community was also mentioned.
Following
his opening remarks he welcomed questions from the members of the NEPMCC.
Clyde
McNeil, Thomas Saras, Dr. Ubale, Srimal Abeyawardene, Masood Mansoorzadeh,
Kenrick Bobb, Malcom Cliff, Sybille Forster-Reintmeister Rosavildo
Rodriguez, and other members asked a wide variety of questions ranging
from
·
The ethnic relations squad
·
Racial profiling
·
Unsolved crimes
·
Investigations carried out by the SIU
·
The percentage of visible minority officers in the present squad
·
Ability of the Police Service to prevent an unforeseen situation
like the 7/7 London bombings
The Police
Chief candidly answered questions on all of these issues.
The highlights of his responses were
·
The present percentage of visible minority officers in the Police
Service is around 13-14% and the last recruiting class had around 40%
coming from various ethnic communities.
·
The officers belonging to the visible minority groups provide a
great value to the force and have a positive impact in the
understanding of various cultures.
·
The Toronto Police Services is equipped to meet any unforeseen
incidents with its highly trained personnel and takes the highest
precaution to prevent any incident that endangers the safety of the
public, but it is almost impossible to guarantee that the bombings which
shocked London recently won’t be repeated in Toronto.
·
Racial profiling is totally unacceptable with more emphasis given
to operate in a bias free manner through community outreach programs and a
number of other ways to eliminate bias.
·
75-80% of the homicide
cases have been successfully solved while the success rate of break ins
and robbery cases is much lower
·
The ethnic relations’ squad is being restructured under the
Deputy Police Chief.
·
The Police chief is the chief for all the people of Toronto: “ no
one left behind.”
·
Approximately 85 % of the complaints against the Police officials
are treated informally (to provide timely and good customer service) and
only a small number of complaints are thoroughly investigated.
·
Independent body investigating Police complaint must have the
skills and resources to carry on the task.
·
Good working relations is important between the SIU and the Toronto
Police service to properly execute any investigation.
·
Six consultative committees exist in the Toronto Police to reach
out to various communities.
Thomas
Saras, President of the NEPMCC promised all possible help to the Police
Chief from the Council in order to make this city as safe as possible.
The Chair,
Clyde McNeil thanked the Police Chief for his time and welcomed him to
make a presentation to the Council whenever he feels necessary to do so.
Toronto
Police Chief Bill Blair said he enjoyed meeting with the members of the
Council. He sees this as very much the beginning of a process of working
together to reach out to all the communities of the city.
Minutes
of the Previous Meeting: Kenrick
Bobb moved a motion seconded by Hassan Zarehi to approve the minutes of
the monthly meeting held on June 13, 2005. It was carried.
President’s
Report/Discussions:
The
summary of the President’s Report is as follows:
·
The office of the Lt. Governor suggested Thursday September 15 as
the date available to host the annual award giving ceremony.
·
Due to the efforts and negotiations of the President with the
Ontario minister for Government Services, Gerry Phillips and with other
Ontario Government officials, effective September members of the Council
would receive Ontario Government ads twice every month.
·
The President negotiated with the responsible official of OLGC to
get more advertising for ethnic media.
·
The President met the Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan on the
morning of July 11 and discussed increasing the percentage of federal
Government advertising in ethnic media to around 10-15% of the total
Government budget for their campaigns in the media (This meeting took
place at the offices of the Federal Government in Toronto.)
·
NEPMCC will have an extra table and more chairs at their reserved
booth in the “Word on the Street Festival.
·
NEPMCC would host cultural shows on Friday Saturday and Sunday of
the Labour Day weekend. Each show would last for around 45’ minutes.
·
The President would distribute CNE passes to only those members who
would be present during the functions hosted by the NEPMCC.
Business
Discussions:
Numerous
discussions on a wide range of topics took place. The highlights of these
discussions is as follows:
·
Luba Cherny is primarily responsible for organizing the functions
at the CNE. Any ethnic group that wants to participate should contact her.
·
Cindy Gu and Emily Mills, would take turn to be present on the days
the functions, that are hosted by the NEPMCC at the CNE. Luba Cherny would
be present on all the days.
·
Massood Mansoorzadeh negotiated with the management of “The
Toronto Star “which would enable ethnic language newspapers to be
distributed along with the weekend edition of the Toronto Star. The ethnic
publications would have to supply their copies to Toronto Star who will
distribute them to their respective ethnic readership.{free of charge)
·
[Motion]
Srimal
Abeyawardene moved a motion and Sybille Foster-Reintmeister seconded it to
accept nominations of awards from the electronic media. It was carried by
all.
·
On the suggestion of Sybille Foster the venue for President’s BBQ
was put to vote. The vote decided that the President’s BBQ would take
place in a farmhouse north of Toronto (belonging to friend of Sybille) on
Saturday August 20.
·
There was a general agreement that members attending the
President’s BBQ would contribute $10 and confirm their participation by
July 31.
·
The following members volunteered to form a committee to organize
the President’s BBQ. They were Kenrick Bobb, Sybille Forster-Rentmeister,
Aris Babikian and John Saraidaris.
·
Emily Mills invited everyone to re-launching of her website Gypsy
Co-op at 817 Queen St West on August 18.
·
Ned Blair organized a forum with visible minorities on cancer in
collaboration with the Canadian Cancer Society on 23rd April at
the L’Oreaux Church in Toronto.
·
Nominations committee has received several nominations and will
make their final decision after going through the due procedure.
End
of Meeting:
Srimal
Abeyawardene moved a motion and Hassan Zerehi seconded it to adjourn the
meeting. It was carried by all. The Chair adjourned the meeting at 9:00
p.m. The next meeting would take place on August 8, 2005 at Queen’s
Park.
The above
text of the minutes have been prepared by the recording secretary of the
NEPMCC Neel Nanda.
The text
has been edited by the President Thomas S. Saras
|