When I was living in Toronto during my early 20s, my personal safety when I was out on the city streets, even late at night, was never really a concern I had.
I lived in the Yonge and Finch area, which is well north of the downtown core for those who aren’t familiar with Toronto’s geography, so when I was downtown in the wee hours of the morning (which was not uncommon) after the subway stopped running for the night, I would have to catch the all-night city bus that ran north and south on Yonge Street to get home.
It was nicknamed the “party bus” because almost all the passengers on it were people coming out of bars and nightclubs too late to catch the subway and, needless to say, the long bus ride home could be pretty raucous at times.
But I never felt unsafe on the bus and would sometimes even fall asleep among all the hooting and hollering that often took place.
The occasional scrap would sometimes break out, but no one ever bothered me and I always got home safe.
I never really thought about it at the time (likely because I was young and naive) but I don’t recall ever seeing more than a few girls on the party bus at any given time, and those that were there were usually surrounded by males to keep them safe.
I was a big and burly young man and I just took it for granted that I had nothing to fear from my fellow bus passengers and, in retrospect, I suppose anyone looking for trouble likely saw me as someone who would not be an easy target.
I didn’t realize in those early days of my life that many women didn’t have the luxury to move about on their own as freely as I did all the time.
That only became clear to me when an old girlfriend of mine came to visit me in Toronto.
She called me at work from Union Station, the transportation hub for trains and subways in the downtown core, where she had gotten off a train and asked me what she should do now.
So I told her what subway and streetcar to catch to get to me and then she went quiet.
I asked if there was a problem with my instructions and she simply said she was afraid to travel around the city alone.
I thought that was bizarre, especially in the middle of a work day, but I left work early to fetch her.
It was only when I saw her that my young and simple, testosterone-filled head began to process the problem.
She was a small girl looking quite vulnerable and scared in the middle of the busy train station with a backpack, and she looked quite relieved to see me.
She enjoyed her visit, but never left my side the whole time.
After that, I started noticing the fact that most women on public transit in Toronto tended to travel in groups and, even then, they always watched those around them closely to make sure there were no threats to them.
I found that most unfair and it still bothers me all these years later that women’s freedom of movement (and freedom from fear) should be called into question due to human predators who, I might add, are almost always men.
All of this came back to me as I was reading through the agenda for an upcoming North Cowichan council meeting recently.
The agenda contained a letter from the Battered Women’s Support Services organization about its new #DesignedWithSurvivors program, a province-wide initiative that reframes gender-based violence as a public-safety crisis.
The letter to North Cowichan’s council, and other local governments, said that, as municipal leaders, they shape the environment where safety is experienced; or where it fails.
“You oversee transit systems, public spaces, housing, policing budgets, and community programs. The decisions you make ripple through every part of daily life, especially for those most at risk,” the letter said.
“Too often, gender-based violence is treated as a private issue, disconnected from the public realm. But women and girls are harmed on buses, in parks, at workplaces, and in their homes; homes often located in your jurisdictions, with limited access to shelter, legal protection, or trauma-informed support.”
The organization said the initiative is not about blame, but about about vision.
“We believe municipalities can lead the way in building safer, more equitable communities by listening to survivors, investing in prevention, and aligning public safety with care, not control,” the letter said.
They’re right of course.
Who doesn’t want to live a world where everyone can feel safe?
