Canada Letter: Violence Is Not the New Normal

The Times’s recent Canada-related coverage with back stories and analysis from our reporters along with opinions from our readers. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Saturday, July 28, 2018 [NYTimes.com/Canada »]( [Violence Is Not the New Normal]( By DAN BILEFSKY Hi, this is Dan Bilefsky, a Canada correspondent for The Times, based in Montreal. I am taking over the Canada Letter this week from Ian Austen, who is in France covering the Tour de France, [including from atop his bike](. [A vigil for 10-year-old Julianna Kozis, who died in Sunday’s shooting in Toronto.] A vigil for 10-year-old Julianna Kozis, who died in Sunday’s shooting in Toronto. Cole Burston/Getty Images Canadians, this one included, have been shaken by the latest [violent attack in Toronto](. As I’m sure most of you know, Faisal Hussain, 29, a Toronto resident with a history of mental illness, opened fire in a bustling city neighborhood, killing a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old who wanted to be a nurse. I returned to live in Canada last fall after 28 years abroad, most recently in London. Having covered more than a half-dozen [terrorist attacks]( as a correspondent in Europe, I experienced an eerie sense of déjà vu while reporting on this attack, even as the Canadian authorities insisted it wasn’t linked to terrorism. [People being evacuated from the Bataclan nightclub in Paris after a terrorist attack in 2015.] People being evacuated from the Bataclan nightclub in Paris after a terrorist attack in 2015. Kenzo Tribouillard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images My time in Britain was deeply marked by an attack at London Bridge in June 2017. As you may remember, three attackers in a van mowed down pedestrians before stabbing people who were enjoying a summer’s night at [London’s Borough Market]( one of my favorite places, a 10-minute bike ride from where I lived. Two years before, I rushed to Paris when Islamic militants targeted the Bataclan nightclub and several outdoor cafes, killing 130 people. Back then, in November 2015, [I wrote about a Jewish cafe owner]( whose Muslim wife died in his arms. This time, I was covering an attack in the country where I grew up. And while it was smaller in scale than the attacks in Paris and London, the horror was no less real, and perhaps had an added tinge of shock since it was so close to home. This kind of event feels so divorced from the Canada where I grew up in the 1980s, where my memories are of culture wars but not gun battles. When I returned home here, I never imagined that I would be writing about rampaging vans on the streets of Toronto, the aftermath of an attack on a Quebec mosque or, now, a Toronto seemingly under siege by gun violence. Had the country I left lost its innocence? As this question milled through my mind, the remarkable resilience of Torontonians also reminded me of Parisiens and Londoners, who thronged cafes in shows of defiance. In London, one man who fled the London Bridge attack was still [clutching his pint of beer.]( [Photos of victims of the shooting in Toronto were displayed on a memorial.] Photos of victims of the shooting in Toronto were displayed on a memorial. Cole Burston/Getty Images Danforth Avenue in Toronto, the site of Sunday’s attack, was a crime scene in the aftermath; a cafe window was pocked with bullet holes and the area was packed with police cruisers. But within 48 hours of the shooting, Toronto residents were again lounging on sunny patios, drinking beer and coffee, next to makeshift memorials that grew taller with flowers with each passing hour. On Tuesday, our Toronto bureau chief, Catherine Porter, met a young man behind the counter of a souvlakia joint, next to a square where the 18-year-old aspiring nurse, Reese Fallon, had bled to death. He said he had helped 10 people hide in the basement and 10 more behind the counter, “and then brought a wounded man in and applied pressure to his leg, where he’d been shot,” Catherine told me. “And here he was, back at work. ‘This is my home,’ he said.” Beyond the notable tenacity of Torontonians, our reporting this week also reminded me that violence in Canada, [where gun-control laws are relatively robust]( is by no means the new normal. The vaunted Canadian liberal model of my youth is still very much here. Torontonians have rallied together; the search for easy scapegoats that had followed some attacks in Europe was noticeably muted. Gun homicides in Canada are about as common as deaths from alcohol poisoning in the United States, which number about 5.6 per million people each year, according to this eye-opening analysis by [The Times’s Upshot column](. And while the cities of Toronto and Chicago have roughly the same populations, [Toronto had 61 homicides in 2017]( compared with 650 in [Chicago]( according to police data from both cities. There were a total of 660 homicides in the whole of Canada in 2017. More From The Times —In [a two-part series]( on “The Daily,” our signature podcast, Sabrina Tavernise pointed a fascinating spotlight at the life of Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, the landmark court decision that guaranteed women in the United States access to abortion. Ms. McCorvey, who [died last year]( went on to become an anti-abortion campaigner. —Also lingering in my fortysomething mind is a story by [Nellie Bowles]( on the manosphere’s worries about dropping sperm counts. Are the declines the result of radical feminists emasculating men? Soy? Tight jeans? You can read more on the issue of male fertility [here](. —And in [a story]( that has already altered my attitude about late-night trips to the refrigerator, [Anahad O’Connor]( explores research showing that indulging in midnight snacks “could be a recipe for weight gain and metabolic trouble.” In other words, it not only matters what we eat, but also when we eat it. Trans Canada [Toronto Shooting Rekindles Familiar Debate: Terrorist? Mentally Ill? Both?]( After the Islamic State claimed the Toronto attacker as one of its soldiers, Rukmini Callimachi and Catherine Porter examined the nexus of terrorism and mental illness. Their conclusion? The militant ideology of the Islamic State is adept online at luring marginalized people who have paranoid fantasies of persecution. [A Second Robert Lepage Production Canceled After an Outcry]( In Montreal, I’ve closely followed the fallout over the famed playwright Robert Lepage’s decision to cast white women as black slaves in the show “Slav.” No sooner had the show been shuttered after an uproar than Lepage was criticized for failing to cast Canadian Indigenous actors in another play, “Kanata.” Its subject: Indigenous suffering in Canada. On Thursday, Lepage announced he was canceling the show after financial backing dried up. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to [nytcanada@nytimes.com](mailto:nytcanada@nytimes.com? subject=Canada%20Letter%20Newsletter%20Feedback). A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for over a decade. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten. LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW NYTIMES [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytimes]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Canada Letter newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018