Let Our Humanity Be Louder Than Gunfire!
The Issue
Before a life becomes a statistic, it belongs to someone. A person with a story, a purpose, and a future still unfolding.
Across Toronto and beyond, gun violence continues to take lives, disrupt communities, and leave lasting consequences for individuals and families.
Jane and Finch is where this call begins, but its message reaches far beyond one neighborhood.
According to Toronto Police Service, Toronto recorded 263 shootings and firearm discharges in 2025, compared with 462 in 2024. While this decrease represents progress, the consequences of gun violence cannot be measured through statistics alone.
Gun violence can leave parents fearful for their children's safety, residents questioning whether they can remain in their neighbourhoods, and families struggling with trauma, grief, and uncertainty. For some, the fear of violence can influence where they live, work, and feel safe enough to belong.
The Jane/Finch Centre's 2025–2026 Annual Report identified affordable housing as a priority for 71% of surveyed respondents, employment and job training for 32%, and mental health supports and youth programs for 29% each. These figures reflect broader community needs, not direct causes of gun violence.
The Centre's earlier research also identified challenges with service coordination and sustainable grassroots funding. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has documented systemic discrimination and accountability concerns within Toronto policing.
These issues are interconnected. Meaningful community safety requires more than responding to violence after it occurs. It requires prevention, accessible support, housing security, institutional accountability, and community leadership working together.
Our communities are not lacking people who care. They are filled with residents, frontline workers, and grassroots organizations who continue to advocate, support one another, and create opportunities, often while navigating limited resources and overwhelming demands.
We cannot keep asking communities to heal from what we have not done enough to prevent, while expecting them to carry more than they already bear. Resilience should never replace responsibility.
We call on Toronto City Council, the Government of Ontario, relevant public institutions, and community safety partners to work collaboratively across their respective responsibilities to:
- Invest in prevention: Secure sustainable funding for youth mentorship, employment opportunities, and community-led violence prevention.
- Support healing: Expand accessible, culturally responsive mental health, trauma, and grief services for affected individuals, families, and witnesses.
- Protect those affected: Strengthen housing safety, emergency relocation options, and ongoing support for individuals and families affected by shootings, including those who no longer feel safe remaining in their homes.
- Ensure accountability: Improve transparency, independent oversight, and public reporting on policing and publicly funded community safety initiatives.
- Centre community voices: Give residents, survivors, young people, and frontline workers meaningful influence over decisions affecting their safety.
We may carry different stories, but we are connected by our humanity.
Compassion alone cannot replace action. And action without accountability cannot build lasting trust.
Let us turn concern into commitment, and commitment into meaningful change.
Sign this petition. Let our voices carry further than fear, and our humanity be louder than gunfire.
Sources:
Jane/Finch Centre (2025), 2024–2025 Annual Report:
https://www.janefinchcentre.org/2025-annual-report
https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/impact-action-final-report-anti-black-racism-toronto-police-service
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The Issue
Before a life becomes a statistic, it belongs to someone. A person with a story, a purpose, and a future still unfolding.
Across Toronto and beyond, gun violence continues to take lives, disrupt communities, and leave lasting consequences for individuals and families.
Jane and Finch is where this call begins, but its message reaches far beyond one neighborhood.
According to Toronto Police Service, Toronto recorded 263 shootings and firearm discharges in 2025, compared with 462 in 2024. While this decrease represents progress, the consequences of gun violence cannot be measured through statistics alone.
Gun violence can leave parents fearful for their children's safety, residents questioning whether they can remain in their neighbourhoods, and families struggling with trauma, grief, and uncertainty. For some, the fear of violence can influence where they live, work, and feel safe enough to belong.
The Jane/Finch Centre's 2025–2026 Annual Report identified affordable housing as a priority for 71% of surveyed respondents, employment and job training for 32%, and mental health supports and youth programs for 29% each. These figures reflect broader community needs, not direct causes of gun violence.
The Centre's earlier research also identified challenges with service coordination and sustainable grassroots funding. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has documented systemic discrimination and accountability concerns within Toronto policing.
These issues are interconnected. Meaningful community safety requires more than responding to violence after it occurs. It requires prevention, accessible support, housing security, institutional accountability, and community leadership working together.
Our communities are not lacking people who care. They are filled with residents, frontline workers, and grassroots organizations who continue to advocate, support one another, and create opportunities, often while navigating limited resources and overwhelming demands.
We cannot keep asking communities to heal from what we have not done enough to prevent, while expecting them to carry more than they already bear. Resilience should never replace responsibility.
We call on Toronto City Council, the Government of Ontario, relevant public institutions, and community safety partners to work collaboratively across their respective responsibilities to:
- Invest in prevention: Secure sustainable funding for youth mentorship, employment opportunities, and community-led violence prevention.
- Support healing: Expand accessible, culturally responsive mental health, trauma, and grief services for affected individuals, families, and witnesses.
- Protect those affected: Strengthen housing safety, emergency relocation options, and ongoing support for individuals and families affected by shootings, including those who no longer feel safe remaining in their homes.
- Ensure accountability: Improve transparency, independent oversight, and public reporting on policing and publicly funded community safety initiatives.
- Centre community voices: Give residents, survivors, young people, and frontline workers meaningful influence over decisions affecting their safety.
We may carry different stories, but we are connected by our humanity.
Compassion alone cannot replace action. And action without accountability cannot build lasting trust.
Let us turn concern into commitment, and commitment into meaningful change.
Sign this petition. Let our voices carry further than fear, and our humanity be louder than gunfire.
Sources:
Jane/Finch Centre (2025), 2024–2025 Annual Report:
https://www.janefinchcentre.org/2025-annual-report
https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/impact-action-final-report-anti-black-racism-toronto-police-service
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Petition created on November 3, 2026