Following a spate of gun violence in the Greater Toronto Area that left
four dead over one weekend including 11-year-old Ephraim Brown, who died in a hail of gang-related gunfire, Ontario is trying to up the number of prosecutors and police officers devoted to gun crimes and gang violence.
The announcement came Monday from
Attorney General Michael Bryant, who says the province will press the feds to provide more police officers to help deal with the gang violence plaguing some of the city's neighbourhoods.
Bryant insists there are too many guns on streets all across Canada, and that the problem reaches far beyond Toronto. Bryant acknowledges the problem goes deeper than merely stopping the flow of guns to Canada, but says that alone would be a great start.
"You do need to do things through our public education system," Bryant admitted. "But for me, my biggest focus is on the guns ... I say, no gun, no funeral."
Bryant actively supports Toronto Mayor David Miller's push for a national handgun ban, though Prime Minister Stephen Harper's administration has quelled attempts at passing such a bill, something Miller and Bryant have been working on since the days of Paul Martin.
"There's 215,000 handguns legally owned in Ontario and they are all targets for theft and can end up on the streets of this province," Bryant said.
"It's not all of the guns that end up in the illegal gun trade, but it's about a third to a half of those guns, and we need to do everything we can to choke off the supply."