My son, who lives in Toronto, sent me a text earlier today saying that he was not injured by the rampage of a vehicle down Yonge street between Finch and Leslie.

My reaction to this sudden upsetting and surprising event was shock.  I lived in Toronto for 20 years, worked at Sheppard and Young for many years and walked the attack zone daily.

Senseless Murder

Of course, senseless mass murder of the innocent is not unknown to the world, fortunately though, it is uncommon.  Also, until today, the  mass incidents have been in  in foreign countries.

That is not to say there have not been attempts in less populated  Metropolitan areas of Canada ( Edmonton, and Halifax) but fortunately these were foiled.

Shock has it’s merit

We can only hope terrible occurences don’t become so comonplace they are no longer shocking.  In fact the goal is zero.  So far though, and certainly in Canada the frequency leads to shock.

In some wartorn countries like Syria or Beirut violent attacks have become the norm resulting in little shock, peehaps to some degree almost acceptance.

As   a nation we must never allow ourselves to reach that point.  We must contain and stop totally these shocking events, we cannot allow their occurence to increase in an upward spiral.

The perpretators, while evil, should not be our main targets though but rather the instigators.  Those that promote senseless harm to the innocent truly need to be eliminated.