http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/s ... 0519p-2838296c.html
Councillor's comments cause concern
Ward 39's Mike Del Grande worries about 'white people' leaving community
DAVID NICKLE More from this author
Dec. 29, 2004
Ward 39 Councillor Mike Del Grande (Scarborough-Agincourt) worries that "white people" are leaving his northwest Scarborough ward, and maintains a list of suspected rooming houses, grow houses and bylaw violations in the form of a ward-wide "census" of single family homes.
"What's happening here is a lot of the white people are moving out," said Del Grande, during a recent tour of his ward with a Mirror reporter. Del Grande agreed to the tour after raising concerns about the assessment he'd received in The Mirror's recent city council report card. He made the comment outside one suspected marijuana grow house after the reporter noted the large suburban home had a Neighbourhood Watch sign in its front window.
During the two-hour tour, the councillor, elected for the first time in 2003, visited sites where he'd had an impact in 2003, focusing on community benefits received from developers, work that he'd done to improve local parks, and work he'd done to root out marijuana grow operations in suburban houses.
Del Grande's ward includes a large Chinese-Canadian population (43.3 per cent of the ward is of Chinese origin, according to 2000 census data posted on the City of Toronto's website).
When asked a short time later to explain his apparent perception that there is a race relations problem in his ward, Del Grande said: "There's two types of Chinese in this neighbourhood. There's the Hong Kong Chinese and there's the mainland Chinese and the Hong Kong Chinese are having trouble with the mainland Chinese. So it's not even white and Chinese. It's Chinese and Chinese. So there's a tension and Hong Kong Chinese are moving out. That's the irony here."
And he concluded:
"But most people don't care what's next door, Jamaican, Filipino, as long as they maintain their property...and they don't cause a lot of problems and have respect for each other, that's the key point," he said.
Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung, chair of the Chinese Cultural Centre, said he was "very disappointed" with Del Grande's comments.
"I think he has to learn the multicultural makeup of this community. He has to try to understand as a leader of the community he should try to resolve the problem and not incite the problem - make more problems," said Cheung.
"But saying that people who are white are moving out and Chinese people are moving in - I wouldn't want to use the word racism, but it's shortsighted to think that only the white people are Canadians and everybody else is an outsider," he added. "That's something that's been happening in the past. It's not well received."
Cheung also disagreed with Del Grande's assertion that Chinese-Canadians from mainland China have problems with those from Hong Kong, or vice versa.
"I think there is some cultural background differences between people from Hong Kong and China, but I think their goals are the same - trying to have a good life in Canada - and I think there might be some disagreements but overall I think Hong Kong people and Chinese people are working well together," he said.
On issues of property standards, Del Grande revealed that he had over the summer paid three summer students to observe every single family house in the ward. He showed the reporter the resulting chart that he said he carries with him, showing addresses and a checklist of suspected problems: overgrown grass, trees that need trimming, illegally-widened driveways and homes that showed signs of being illegal rooming houses or grow houses.
When asked if his constituents might not be disturbed at having their homes observed so closely, Del Grande responded: "If somebody calls to complain about their neighbour, I say...by the way, you got a widened driveway which is illegal as well...so you're breaking the law as much as the other guy. You want to proceed? I'll proceed."
Del Grande is, however, proactive on many property standards issues. He said he travels around his ward with a pair of binoculars and a digital camera, monitoring suspected illegal grow houses and also keeping an eye on houses that he suspects are illegal rooming houses.
"What I do is I get a camera and a pair of binoculars...I just literally drive by continually," he said.
Del Grande has also begun a much-publicized process of putting a sign up on the lawns of grow houses once the police have busted them. He dismissed concerns that doing so affects property values of the surrounding homes.
"The issue is we don't put them up forever - just for two to five days, saying we got rid of this," he said.
Del Grande also raised concerns that too many of the homes in the ward are tenant-occupied rather than owner-occupied. He said that his goal for the community is to have more homeowners move in.
"What I want at the end of the day is I want people to move into the neighbourhood and not move out of the neighbourhood," he said. "I think that tells the story...There are a lot of vacant homes. This area seems to be predominantly lots of absentee landlords, lots of rentals." |
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发表于 2004-12-30 20:24:51
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