I am unsure how they get their scores, because I don’t think the area is very bikeable. There are few streets in the area that encourage bikes, and plenty of fast thoroughfares and dangerous drivers that discourage biking. That being said, we have a fair share of bikers, namely the geriatric Chinese group, who ride all year. They are not insignificant.

Most bicycle riders in North Scarborough use the sidewalk, which is infrequently used by walkers, and I encourage this. The vehicles on our roads usually speed and really detest cyclists, which makes for a very dangerous experience for the bicyclist. The main roads such as Finch and Sheppard are very busy and vehicles drive fast.

Walkscore.com and their bike scores for Scarborough, Canada, suburb of Toronto

It is never easy to admit fault, but only through acknowledgment of an error can said error be corrected. In Toronto’s G20 summit in 2010 Toronto and other police and RCMP beat up and violated the rights of over 1,500 Canadian citizens. The police became the criminal element. It is only the passing of almost 2 years of time that this wrong is beginning to turn. Maybe.

There is no question that police beat up and arrested innocent Canadian civilians at Toronto’s G20 summit in 2010. Over 1,100 people were arrested, only 30 or so were ever charged, and only a handful were ever convicted of anything. All the rest, were just used as punching bags for the police and politicians. I know not if this was malicious or just benign neglect, but I do know that it was unequivocally illegal and should not have happened in the first place. Blame systemic problems with the chain of command within the political and police system,

More time will need to pass before the acknowledgment of illegality occurs. This one by the Office of the Independent Police Review (OIPRD), as well as the numerous Ontario Ombudsman’s reports is a good first step in the right direction, but Canada has a much farther path to follow. No government, Federal, Provincial nor municipal, has acknowledged that mistakes were made at the Toronto G20 Summit 2010. I hope this acknowledgment will occur in the future, in order to shore up the confidence of the Canadian legal system.

“What occurred over the course of the weekend resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. These disturbances had a profound impact not only on the citizens of Toronto and Canada generally, but on public confidence in the police as well,” writes Gerry McNeilly, head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a citizen agency that today tabled the 300- page systemic review report.

source

More significantly, very few people have been charged with beating up Toronto citizens. I believe that only two officers have been charged to date. All the rest, as well as their superiors that gave them orders, and the politicians that gave the police superiors their orders, have not been charged, and may never be charged. The bigger the crime, the increased prevalence that no one will be held accountable. This seems to be how life rolls, and what I believe will eventually happen.

The wheels of justice may move ever so slowly, but does not touch all Canadian citizens the same. Some are immune to prosecution, and this includes the politicians and the police. Please prove me wrong.

The Walkability project is interesting to me in that I would rather walk or ride a bike to shop or go places yet I live in the suburbs, a statistically less walkable area of Toronto. While we do have better air and a far greater supply of Chinese groceries, I hope that my neighbourhood’s walkability will increase.

The study reveals an overwhelming preference for walkable and transit-supportive neighbourhoods across the GTA, with that preference being strongest in the City of Toronto. It demonstrated that that there are specific neighbourhood features, such as having shops and services within walking distance of homes, and having a variety of small and medium sized food stores within walking distance of homes, that are strongly desired by Toronto residents. It also found that there is a strong latent demand for more walkable neighbourhood features among residents in the City who currently live in less walkable areas.

The study found that people living in walkable neighbourhoods across the GTA, and in Toronto, do more utilitarian walking, take transit more often, drive less often and less far, and have lower body weights, than those who live in less walkable neighbourhoods. These results suggest that people living in more walkable neighbourhoods in the GTA are more physically active with less chance of developing a chronic disease, than those who live in less walkable neighbourhoods. They also suggest that there may be significant air quality, climate change, and traffic reduction benefits associated with walkable and transit-supportive neighbourhoods.

The City of Toronto report has a lovely graphic outlining the walkability of the whole city. Unfortunately the city is so large and my area of Toronto looks so small on the map that I cannot easily identify my house, neighbourhood and its walkability. Therefore it was important to me to map this walkability graphic to a map of Toronto specifically targetting North-East Scarborough. The Walkability graphic is then superimposed over top of the map of Toronto, thereby showing you roads and other landmarks. Find your house, and the related colours will show you the walkabilty information. The walkabilty information is very blurry because the original graphic is quite small and superimposed over the huge map of Toronto. Zooming onto only a small area of Toronto can only result in a blurry image.

Larger image

Toronto is a relatively safe city in comparison to other Canadian cities, and much safer than comparably large American cities. Still, there is crime in every area. Criminals have cars and can drive to wherever they want. Low crime areas may even provide an opportunity for criminal acts. There is no place that is safe from all crime. It also stands to reason that the more dense an area’s population, the more crime should be expected.

I have chosen to research Chinese areas in Toronto because I am Chinese, live in Toronto and have an interest in this topic. It is not because I believe Chinese people have more or less a propensity to commit crime. Of course I hope they have less propensity, but realistically, I know this is difficult to prove.

The Toronto Star had published a series of articles on Toronto’s most populous ethnic enclaves. Note that these ethnic enclaves are usually not predominantly one race, but are mixed race. I believe it is natural for a newly landed immigrant to seek out people who share a similar language and culture, because this makes the immigrant more comfortable and eases integration into Canadian life. Actually it preserves their home land culture and diffuses the effect of moving to Canada somewhat.

That being said, in my area of Toronto, with its predominance of Chinese culture, you can live very happily speaking only Mandarin or Cantonese. One can shop for groceries and other products and not speak a word of English. Large big box grocers are slowly converting more signage over to Chinese, as well as hiring more Chinese speaking staff. There is one big box grocer near my house that is predominantly Chinese and is even designed to look like an independent Chinese grocer. A local store from a Canada-wide home renovation chain near my house hires predominantly Chinese speaking staff, though you can also speak to them in English. No matter that these stores and their staff are biased to Chinese speakers, there is no exclusion of other races displayed. I often see Indian, white and black shoppers rubbing elbows with Mainland Chinese shoppers, all without issue. In turn I also visit Indian and Sri Lankan shops where I am the only non-Indian shopper, where all the signs are in Indian, and the staff speak very little English. This is common here in my area of Toronto. Body language and racial tolerance goes a long way for inter-racial communications and social harmony.

Toronto Ethnic Enclaves: TorStar

Focusing on the predominantly Chinese areas of Toronto, by far the largest block is located in Toronto’s north east, in the suburbs of Scarborough and North York (east). This area is generally bordered by Yonge Street to Markham Road, Steeles Avenue to Highway 401. The more east you go in this area, the heavier the concentration of Chinese culture. Often such a concentration of Chinese culture is a shock to people new to the area, but it should not be. I do understand shock from people who have lived in their houses for 30 years and have seen their neighbourhoods become more Chinese with time. Sometimes I do hear the occasional resentment, but this should be expected, as this area 10 years ago was predominantly white. The map below uses the Toronto Star ethnic enclaves map, with a Google map underneath. Note that there is an even larger concentration of Chinese in Markham/Richmond Hill, just north of Scarborough.

Toronto Largest Chinese Community: North York and Scarborough

If you live in this area you should expect a high predominance of Chinese stores, Chinese literature at local public libraries, Chinese kids in elementary and high schools, and generally more Chinese neighbours. If you love Chinese and Asian food, there is plenty to choose and quality and competition is very high. Go to local parks and you will see and hear from Chinese kids talking Chinese to their Chinese parents, though they most often speak English between themselves. Negatively at local schools you should see a generally lower level of English language skill. This area has a large predominance of new immigrants who’s first language is Chinese and not English. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes are very common in almost all schools. I often meet Grandparents who know not a word of English, speak their local dialect of Chinese and struggle to understand my Mandarin, just like if I had met them while in China.

The next important question I asked myself is, how safe are Toronto’s Chinese enclaves, when compared to Toronto? I have taken the Toronto Star’s Ethnic Enclave map and overlayed a Violent Crimes map from the Toronto Police. The Violent crimes map tracks violent crime calls (lighter green means less violent crime calls), shootings (hollow circles) and homicides (circles with dot), Toronto police carding (Field Information Report, or FIRs), all overlayed on a Google map.

Toronto Violent Calls map: Toronto Police Services

Toronto Chinese Neighbourhoods and Violent Crime Rates

From Yonge Street to Brimley falls into the lowest and second lowest violent crime categories. From Brimley to Markham Road falls into the highest of the five violent crime categories, and one of the areas of Toronto where police stop and question citizens the most.

So is living in a predominantly Chinese area safer than other areas? While it is difficult to say, I would guess that yes, it is safer, but not necessarily because Chinese people are less violent than other races. This large Chinese enclave has less population density, being a suburb of Toronto, and therefore should have fewer violent crime, shootings and homicide rates. This is especially true from Yonge Street to Brimley Avenue. Troubling is the area east of Brimley to Markham Road, which has similar densities but some of the highest rates of violence calls, shootings and homicides in Toronto, though from the map most of the shootings and homicides are outside of the Chinese predominant areas. What this means I do not know and will not speculate.

I do not want to necessarily prove that living in Toronto’s largest Chinese enclave is safer than elsewhere in Toronto, but to bring some facts and statistics to light about the area. Where you buy or rent your home is your decision. Ethnic diversity and crime are but two deciding factors to consider. However if you want to live in a predominantly Chinese neighbourhood in Toronto, you now know where to look.

Map of Toronto by Violent Crime, shootings and Homicides. Layered with details from Google Maps.

The original map had very little detail in terms of street names, which made it difficult to find your exact house location. I have added a layer of Google map underneath so you have more landmarks to guide you. Landmarks such as the TTC subway, major streets such as Yonge Street and highways such as the 404 and the Gardner, parks and waterways were all missing, making the map more difficult to use than it should have been. Because the map is so large already I could not clearly include street names. Toronto is quite large.

Field Information Report (FIR) cards are filled out by police on people they randomly stop. Police use this as intelligence gathering.

Officers stop and question people and document who they are with on Field Information Report cards. Personal details, including physical descriptions, are then entered into a huge database, which officers can search later in the aftermath of crimes. More than a million individuals have been documented in the past three years; the number of cards filled out jumped 18 per cent between 2008 and 2011.

Large map, 2.8MB, is large but the detail is required.

>Map of Toronto by Violent Crime, shootings and Homicides. Layered with details from Google Maps.

The Toronto Star also published an interesting map of Total Criminal Charges mapped by patrol zone, but put no street names or landmarks on the map. It was difficult for me to find my neighbourhood without street names. This map displayed criminal charges from 2009 and 2010.

Again I have superimosed a Google map of Toronto on top of the Toronto Star map, making it much easier to find your neighbourhood.

Toronto, Canada, Criminal Charges by area made by police, 2009-2010, TorStar

Large Map, Criminal Charges by Toronto Police, 2009-2010, 2MB. Map is hard to read because it is large and Toronto is large in population.

>Toronto, Canada, Criminal Charges by area made by police, 2009-2010, TorStar

The Criminal Charges map should, in general, correlate with the violent crime map. Where there is higher crime there should be higher criminal charges. A lower violent crime area with higher criminal charges might mean police are overzealous in their efforts, but who can definitively say.

Q: There are three covered boxes that are all mislabeled: one contains “apples”, one contains “oranges”, one contains “mixed”. You cannot see the contents of these boxes. You may stick your hand into one box at a time and take out a fruit. How do you correctly relabel the boxes?

A: The boxes are all mislabeled. Stick your hand into the box labeled “mixed”.

Step 1a: If you take out an apple, then this is the apple box. The original “mixed” label is incorrect (given), therefore the only possible options are apples or oranges. Switch the labels between the “mixed” and “apple” boxes. The original mixed box becomes the apple box. The original apple box becomes the mixed box. The apple box is now correctly labeled.

The box originally mislabeled “orange” (given) must be the mixed box. Its options are apple or mixed, and since the apple box is already correctly labeled (step 1a), there is no other choice but mixed. The final box must be the orange box.

Step1b: If you take out an orange, then this is the orange box. The original “mixed” label is incorrect (given), therefore the only possible options are apples or oranges. Switch the labels between the “mixed” and “orange” boxes. The original mixed box becomes the orange box. The original orange box becomes the mixed box. The orange box is now correctly labeled.

The box originally mislabeled “apple” (given) must be the mixed box. Its options are orange or mixed, and since the orange box is already correctly labeled, there is no other choice but mixed. The final box must be the apple box.

Note: If the original labels may be incorrect, then while you can correctly label one fruit, the other fruit and mixed will be more difficult to determine. You will need to pull sucessive fruits from each box until you see both oranges and apples coming from the same box. This may take many tries. If one box is apples and the mixed box has oranges at the bottom and apples on the top, then you would have to continue to select fruit until you have exhausted the mixed box’s apples.

This morning I was submitting candidates to this company for interviews. The company was asking us for convenient interview times. But by noon the news turned grim: all contractor positions were filled. Anyone looking for a contract that was not already interviewed was being offered permanent positions only. The abruptness was a bit shocking to me, as it looked like there was a lack of planning.

Nonplussed they were, when I called back my contractors. No, they were uninterested in a permanent position and yes, this is pretty normal. It is all Ok. They wanted to stay in touch. When I had a new opportunity, they wanted me to call them. There was no complaining nor any request for explanation. It was all pretty normal behaviour for them.

After job interviews few contractors ask for feedback. If it worked out, then fine. If they did not hear from the recruiter or company, this was normal: They had been rejected for whatever reason, and the reason did not matter. Some companies like certain skills and some dislike certain skills in their skill set. Rejection comes easily to them, and is shed like water off the back of a duck.

I feel like the noob recruiter I am. Maybe we can all learn something here. Or maybe we should not. How about we treat all job applicants with more respect than they get today? Would not the world, or at least here in Toronto, be a better place?

It is old news that recent immigrants to Canada have a difficult time finding gainful employment in their specialty. It goes without saying that new immigrants to Canada may have language issues which limit their employability, but year on year there are news articles about surgeons from foreign countries living in Canada only able to find work as truck or taxi drivers. With personal experience from friends I believe this is completely true.

In this tough recession, after years of unemployment, despite my Canadian employment experience and Canadian education, I could not understand why I could not find a job. I was perplexed. Was it the state of the economy? Was it my studies in China and fluency in Mandarin that companies did not like? Was it my Chinese name?

One jewel of a link from the Globe and Mail article caught my attention:

But there is more to the problem than just the state of the business cycle, a case made by Philip Oreopoulos, a labour economist at the University of Toronto, in a paper called “Why do skilled immigrants struggle in the labour market?“

While I cannot comment on the methodology of the study the conclusions of Dr Oreopolous make a lot of sense in my situation and explain a lot.

Thousands of resumes were sent in response to online job postings across multiple occupations in Toronto to investigate why Canadian immigrants, allowed in based on skill, struggle in the labor market. Resumes were constructed to plausibly represent recent immigrants under the point system from the three largest countries of origin (China, India, and Pakistan) and Britain, as well as non-immigrants with and without ethnic sounding names. In addition to names, I randomized where applicants received their undergraduate degree, whether their job experience was gained in Toronto or Mumbai (or another foreign city), whether they listed being fluent in multiple languages (including French).

The study produced four main findings: 1) Interview request rates for English-named applicants with Canadian education and experience were more than three times higher compared to resumes with Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani names with foreign education and experience (5 percent versus 16 percent), but were no different compared to foreign applicants from Britain. 2) Employers valued experience acquired in Canada
much more than if acquired in a foreign country. Changing foreign resumes to include only experience from Canada raised callback rates to 11 percent. 3) Among resumes listing 4 to 6 years of Canadian experience, whether an applicant’s degree was from Canada or not, or whether the applicant obtained additional Canadian education or not
had no impact on the chances for an interview request. 4) Canadian applicants that differed only by name had substantially different callback rates: Those with English sounding names received interview requests 40 percent more often than applicants with Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani names (16 percent versus 11 percent). Overall, the results
suggest considerable employer discrimination against applicants with ethnic names or with experience from foreign firms.

Clear is the conclusion from page 8:

Applicants with English-sounding names with Canadian education and experience received callbacks 40 percent more often than did applicants with Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani names. Conditional on listing 4 to 6 years Canadian experience, being foreign educated (whether at a highly ranked school or not) did not affect callback rates
substantially… Adding more language credentials, additional Canadian education, or extracurricular activities had little impact on these overall results… Overall, the results suggest considerable employer discrimination against ethnic Canadians and immigrants.

Because of the diverse multicultural nature of Toronto this conclusion is shocking to me. Despite my decidedly Canadian upbringing, is it my Chinese name that is my Achilles heel? Is this also true for my children? While there is relative racial harmony here in Toronto, we still have a long way to go for employment equality. Irregardless of the reasons for discrimination, and the author has suggested many, this discrimination greatly harms job seekers, just as it has harmed my family and myself.

Despite the Ontario Human Rights law that bans discrimination due to ethnicity, it is difficult or impossible to legislate equality in hiring practices. It is these same companies that are bypassing some really excellent talent. Yet this is Canadian culture, and I learned this from a very young age. Unlike the Americans we are much more subtle here in Canada. It will be interesting to see if this hiring practice will persist as Toronto becomes even more ethnically diverse. I hope that there will not be the unspoken two tier society that we have today.

The TTC seems to have stayed the same. I expected advancements, but this is not so. They struggle to keep from falling backward on themselves. While most bus drivers are courteous, I have met those who are not. Once there was a detour because of a crime and police had closed the road. This driver did not even announce why he was detouring, so many people asked. He got so mad.

One day on the Yonge subway line I was able to try out the new subway trains. This is one long train that you can walk from one end to the other. Very nice. The schedule has LEDs that light red or green, but have no legend, so I did not know their meaning. Was I to guess? The loudness of these trains was by far much less than the old TTC subways, and much more comfortable. Annoying was the fact that the metal passenger handles on the roof and in the middle of the car squeaked incessantly when passengers and the train moved. This was a new train, and these metal handles were squeaking like rusted objects left out in the rain.

Finding your most efficient TTC route takes some time. The Finch East towards Yonge Street has had construction for the last year. Traffic was down to one lane, slowing the express bus to a crawl. That was the last I used that route.

As I knew before, most TTC commuters sleep. At leat 60% of all commuters close their eyes and try to wish away their commuting experience. Others have ear pieces and listen to music while sleeping. It is annoying to walk behind those that fiddle with their phones and e-toys, who slow down because they need to concentrate on their fiddling. Please, people, step aside and fiddle, and let others walk to their destination.

Electronic toys will be the death of many, I am sure. I saw some guy trip on the sidewalk while texting, and there was no break in the sidewalk. Two people walk into each other, both texting on their devices. It is comical. Darwin candidate?

People are as colourful as usual, with a variety of dress and looks. It is interesting to see them and analyze their dress. Pretty girls everywhere. To fit in and to look normal, seemingly.

I walk and look through my narrow periscope, trying to see the big picture. Maybe the solution is to aggregate these experiences and build up a composite.