Prayer walk held across Toronto as city grapples with rising gun violence, hate crimes

A prayer walk was held in neighbourhoods across Toronto on Thursday to bring communities together and raise awareness about gun violence and hate crimes.

Mayor Olivia Chow and police Chief Myron Demkiw joined faith leaders of the Canadian Black Clergies and Allies to participate in the prayer walk that took place simultaneously in all of the police divisions across the city for the second time.

"Any shooting in the city is one shooting too many," Demkiw said at the event.

The walk began at Yonge-Dundas Square at 2 p.m. and proceeded along Dundas Street W., north on Spadina Avenue and east on Baldwin Street before finishing at the First Baptist Church on Huron Street.

The walk took place shortly after a shooting in North York that left a30-year-old man in hospital in life-threatening condition.

Although the number of shootings fell in 2023, gun violence has been on the rise this year, according to data from Toronto police.

As of September, there had been 338 shootings in the city, the highest number since 2020, and 35 people had died from gun violence. In all of 2023, there were 231 shootings and 22 gun-related deaths.

"We are not doing well if our children are being recruited and running around with guns," Chow said.

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'Say no to hate'

This year's theme was community unity and people from all faiths were invited to walk together.

"Every step of the walk we say no to hate," Chow said.

"We say yes to love, to compassion and to the hope that is inside all of us to say we can help those young people to find purpose in life to not get recruited by gang members," she said.

The prayer walk is modelled on an event in Etobicokewhereofficers and faith leaders have been walkingthrough neighbourhoods to meet community members and build relationships each monthfor the past 19 years.

In February, a prayer walk was held in a northwest Toronto neighbourhood after two back-to-back shootings left a man dead and a teenaged boy injured.

"Faith in our community needs to bridge the gap of hate," saidRev. Wendell Gibbs. "There was a time when racial tension might have been a big factor. It probably still is. But the biggest factor right now is the hate we have seen across all lines of ethnicity and the comparisons we put into ourselves."

"We are doing this prayer walk to publicly declare that we can walk together in unity irregardless of what our differences might be," he said.