Juray Dixon: 17-year-old wanted for multiple shootings in Toronto
(www.torontopolice.on.ca)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (14)
sorted by:
His parents failed him, not the system.
If he was raised in a single mother household, his parents are partly responsible, definitely. The system fails people like Juray because the economy is in such bad shape that it is a game of musical chairs. So not everyone gets a chair (job and housing). There is more labour supply than there is labour demand. There is more housing demand than housing supply. That is a deadly combination. Juray gets passed up for Pajeet in job interviews because Pajeet is higher-IQ and more efficient, has a better temperament. And Juray has to compete against 8 Pajeets for a room rental. The system does hurt people with low-IQ, mental illness, cognitive disabilities (ie. autism), physical disabilities, etc. The difference is that the Liberals make it into a race issue when it's not. Juray just isn't as capable as the applicants he is competing against. Liberals can't solve the issue of urban poverty (especially homelessness) if they aren't honest about it.
This is a complex situation and I don't disagree with what you are saying.
His parents had 17 years to prepare him to compete and function in this system. I doubt they cared enough to make sure he had a good education and work ethic. This is like expecting your child to be a pro athlete when they are an adult but never signing them up for sports or practicing in the backyard with them when they are young.
I blame 80% of the problems we see in the black community on their culture. Plenty of black people from non Somali or Caribbean cultures get a good education and jobs and actually do better than old stock White Canadians, while we see the former involved in the majority of violent crime.
If the system is to be blamed, it is for enabling mothers to have children when they shouldn't be. But that is kind of the chicken or the egg question because responsible mothers wouldn't have children in the first place if they couldn't provide for them.
Even if Juray's parents did a better job, if Juray doesn't fall through the cracks, someone else would fall through the cracks in his place. Because our economic system is a zero sum game at this point. It's not like there's a bunch of jobs going unfilled. Society is functioning just fine with a labour force that is getting leaner and leaner due to automation, economies of scale, outsourcing, etc. The pandemic has made employers realize how they could get away with a lean workforce. Jobs and housing aren't just created out of thin air. Someone has to be willing to invest capital to create that job or create more housing. Someone has to be willing to hire or rent to the people who are on the bottom of the totem pole. Employers and landlords are notorious for making risk assessments on every hire, every tenant. I have experience running a small business and my parents and siblings were landlords so I know this first hand. The percentage of working-age adults 25-54 (excepting stay at home moms and dads) not in the labour force was rather high before the pandemic. The housing bubble in major metropolitan areas like the Greater Toronto Area has been growing for a couple decades, maybe longer.
The system literally encourages people who fall through the cracks to either kill themselves, overdose on opiates or turn to crime like Juray does. Liberals and NDP have failed to address the problem. Most of the money they invest in programs goes towards bureaucrats rather than the people it's supposed to help. A certain percentage of Conservative supporters are open about the fact that they are happy when homeless people kill themselves and overdose on opiates. But then they have a shocked pikachu face moment when the people who fall through the cracks decide instead to take out their frustration externally rather than internally by culturally enriching them in the parking lot. There are problems with both sides.