» Canada doesn’t have to wait until 2040 for doomsday report

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It’s already the dystopian year 2040 at 130 Queen St. W. in Toronto where hundreds of starving Canadians wait in a food line to get a free meal!

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Or on Britannia Rd. in Mississauga, at Pearson International Airport, at Sheppard Ave. W. and Bathurst St., in Grimsby or pretty much anywhere else you look!

This country is not the Canada of the glory days. It just isn’t.

Like the federal government’s Policy Horizons Canada internal report that predicted a collapse of Canada in 15 years that could see people hunting in the wild for meat, it already looks apocalyptic and dystopian: Crime, homelessness, hunger, violence and death are everywhere.

As the Toronto Sun’s Bryan Passifiume reported this week, the Future Lives: Social mobility in question report “paints a picture” of a society where “wealth inequality is rising” and “in 2040, upward social mobility is almost unheard of in Canada. Hardly anyone believes that they can build a better life for themselves, or their children, through their own efforts.”

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Many didn’t want to talk about it. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre did.

“It’s something from the post-apocalyptic TV show like Fallout or The Last of Us,” Poilievre said Tuesday. “But this is the forecast from Prime Minister Carney’s own government department, the Privy Council Office. Now Mr. Carney plans to continue the very policies that got us into this mess in the first place.”

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Canadians who live in the Golden Horseshoe already know they don’t have to wait to see a dystopian future. It’s already here. While in this federal election campaign many just ignore what they see, many Canadians’ eyes are open and they don’t like what what they see.

An example was the massive line Wednesday night outside Osgoode Hall, next to Nathan Phillips Square and Toronto’s city hall. People were queued up, half a kilometre around the corner, in what somebody could have mistakenly thought were fans trying to get into a concert or hockey game.

It was instead for a hot meal and groceries.

“At this place, you get both,” said David, who was one of the faithful waiting outside the weekly Lawyers Feed the Hungry event.

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It draws a crowd.

So do the foodbanks — including the Fort York Food bank on College St. near Kensington Market — which also often have long lineups for a basket of the basics. The parks are starting to fill up again with tents and you see more and more of that under the elevated portion of the Gardiner Expressway. There are also homeless sleeping at Pearson airport now.

The streets are crazy violent too — many are carrying guns which means police are faced with such danger when they approach a car. We saw that on the leaked body cam this week in which an officer had a gun pulled on him by a 16-year-old which they really had no choice but to shoot.

It’s so unpredictable now.

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For example, it was a scene from hell with police drawing their guns on masked suspects allegedly in the middle of one of the region’s 50 daily carjackings under way.

“Don’t you F’n move,” the officer tells the suspect as he gets onto the hood of a car and points his gun down toward him. “Show me your hands.” This wasn’t happening south of the border like Chicago or Baltimore. It’s Mississauga on a Thursday afternoon at the corner of residential Britannia Rd. W. and Hogan Dr.

Coppers from Peel Regional Police’s 11 Division did a masterful job of taking into custody three youths and one adult and charging them with possession of property obtained by crime and possession of break in instruments. They will all be out on the streets on bail soon if not already.

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Advantage bad guys. But good work by Peel cops.

It has been a busy week for Peel Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah who, like all GTA police chiefs, is run off his feet. On the same day as this, two of his officers were forced to use lethal measures on a 30-year-old man with a long violent crime rap sheet when he pulled a gun and pointed it toward a cop.

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Same thing happened this week in North York where two Toronto Police officers had to shoot a 16-year-old youth who, when asked to leave the back of a car, pulled a gun and shot at an officer. The teen was shot and killed too.

It’s crazy in Canada now. It’s wild out there. Chaos.

Just last week we had a 21-year-old woman, an international student from India, murdered by a stray bullet while waiting for a bus in Hamilton. Even in Grimsby, out in the Niagara Region, there was a wild scene in which thugs robbed a jewelry store and then fled the scene that will be challenged by residents who have had enough.

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“What happened to our country?” asks MP Dean Allison. “A justice system with a revolving door where criminals are not afraid of breaking the law because they know there are no consequences.”

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It’s out of control now. Everywhere. All the time!

But the cops are trying. They are brave, they are at risk and they don’t quit on the rest of us. A video of the Mississauga arrest shows that.

“The arrest of these individuals marks a significant victory in our ongoing efforts to curb violent crime and ensure the safety of our citizens,” said Duraiappah. “Our community can take comfort in knowing that justice will be served, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to maintaining peace and security.”

The community appreciates it. And so does the chief.

“Thank you to the men and women of Peel Regional Police for their quick thinking and for the safe apprehension of these individuals,” said the chief. “Together, we will continue to work diligently to prevent such incidents and protect our neighbourhoods.”

Of course they need some help from government on that.

Will it be fixed before 2040? Or is it already too late in 2025?

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