KJ Mullins-Toronto: There seems to be a common theme in Toronto with some conservatives at City Hall; if you’re not achieving the dream we don’t want you. If you live on the streets you’re not welcome. If your family has a crime background find a new place to dwell. If you want community services get a big pay cheque and you can pay for them yourselves.

Now granted no one wants the criminals on the streets that are turning Toronto into the wild, wild west. It’s common sense to want the thugs that think a gun is a solution gone from the streets in a nice barred room without a view. But there’s a bigger picture that’s being missed by some of the head honchos at Toronto, Inc.

Toronto is getting new images for visitors daily. One is that it’s a place to go to a party and get shot. There’s another image though that may be even worst, that the city is being run by bigots who believe that only the 1% should bother setting down roots in the T.dot.

When the top brass make comments about sweeping away the homeless, deporting Canadian citizens and voting against community grants for programs that help those at risk it sends a clear message out to the rest of us. God forbid you have to deal with a job loss, a kid on the outside of the law or mental illness because you’re city doesn’t want you.

This week Mayor Rob Ford called into AM640 saying among other things, “But I’m gonna do everything in power to find out, you know, if we can get rid of these people when they get out of jail. I don’t want ‘em living in this city.”

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney also called into the radio lines this week to remind Ford that Canadian citizens who’ve served their time have a few rights and one of those rights is to live where they want. Kenney told Newstalk1010 Friday, “As it relates to the immigration part of this, look, obviously we can’t tell people which city they can or cannot live in, and if someone’s a Canadian citizen and they’re convicted of a crime, there’s nothing we can do to deport them because citizenship is irrevocable unless it was found that they’ve obtained it fraudulently.”

Last week the Sun reported, “The mayor wants to get (the homeless) off the streets immediately,” Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti said. “We want to be able to say ‘come with us, we’ve got a transitional home waiting for you, we don’t want you sleeping on the streets’ and take them off forcefully if we have to.”

The Toronto Star reported that Mayor Ford has consistently voted against community development grants programs, including one that the federal government would be funding for gang prevention.

Toronto is not a white bread city. We are more like that Skittles rainbow with more than a few pinkos thrown in that is all over the airwaves today. Those Skittles all look different but they all taste pretty darn good. Yes, some of those in the city are not very nice people and yes, it would be nice if the rotten apples had another address but they don’t. It would also be nice if the programs that may help keep the future gang kids out of that life would not have to worry if they had funding each year.

So how do we improve Toronto and make it a safer place to live? I don’t have the answers or a magic wand but here’s an idea. Let’s ship the bigots out to the suburbs and put a big gate around their land.

Oh wait, maybe that’s already taken place.