Police respond to a shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair event in Toronto, on July 11.Keito Newman/The Canadian Press
Gunshots ring out in a crowd. Two young lives are cut short and a half-dozen other people wounded. This was the scene at Toronto’s Salsa on St. Clair Festival on July 11, a day of sweaty celebration riven by an almost unspeakable tragedy as night approached.
Torontonians, and Canadians, have been shaken. Such brazen violence at a peaceful gathering seems to have crossed a line. This is a transgression we must not accept; even one instance is too many.
But how we react says much about us. Governments should be resolute in seeking out the causes of the violence and in responding. At the same time, any answer must be reasonable and proportionate.
This violent act is not a sign of our society’s collapse; nor is it a sign that we should avoid each other’s company or avoid our big cities - which are, statistically, among the safest places in the country.
Almost two weeks after the shooting, crucial facts remain unclear. Police say two young men, Cesar Vernaza and Shaquan Quashie, were killed in a targeted shooting. But many questions remain. What motivated the shooting? Why in such a dangerously public spot? What kind of guns were used, and where did they come from?
Deadly shooting at Toronto's Salsa on St. Clair festival sparks demands for solutions
Limited facts make it hard to draw conclusions. But handguns are the easiest type of firearm to conceal, and handguns used in Canadian crime are almost always illegally imported.
Ottawa must crack down harder on the scourge of gun trafficking. Current border security measures are not adequate. Prime Minister Mark Carney could also do more to remind U.S. President Donald Trump, who complains about drugs and wildfire smoke moving south, that deadly cross-border traffic is a two-way street.
But the brazen nature of this month’s shooting should not lead us to jump to conclusions. Many Canadians feel that violent crime is on the rise. Many also share a sense, in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, of a growing social disorder.
That is not entirely baseless. Crime severity indexes, reported by police departments across the country, fell for a decade from 2006 to 2016, but they have been rising ever since. Violent crime in particular is at similar levels to those of the early 2000s.
And yet: Toronto is not facing a crime wave. It remains the safest of Canada’s major city regions. Shootings and homicides in the City of Toronto are down sharply since 2024. The 2025 total of 45 homicides was the lowest in half a century, and this year’s pace is similar, even taking into account the Salsa on St. Clair shooting.
Toronto has also spent weeks showing the value of cities bringing people together in public. The World Cup games there, along with those in Vancouver, brought tens of thousands out to celebrate. No serious incidents were reported. Instead, the fan zones in Toronto, at Fort York and The Bentway and at the city’s central Nathan Phillips Square, were filled with friendly rooting and four-on-four games on specially built mini-pitches.
Team Canada fans shared space with those cheering for Bosnia and Herzegovina or Morocco without a hint of conflict, even as the national teams battled it out on the pitch.
We need to lean into that spirit. Big cities have a unique power to literally bring people together. Where else, in a country dominated by social media and solo car commutes, do we actually get to look one another in the eye?
Opinion: Scoring points from a tragedy in Toronto
What city planners call the “public realm” – the sidewalks and public squares and gathering places – is a reflection of our health as a society, and also a factor in shaping it. Canada’s hosting of the World Cup showed us how.
The fan zones in Vancouver and Toronto were models of collective gathering, revealing the multicultural spirit of these cities and showing that their residents can play well together.
Big street festivals like Salsa on St. Clair, of which Toronto has many, likewise reinforce a sense of community – just as Montreal’s many festivals, pedestrian streets and terrasses do every summer. Generally these street festivals are peaceful events filled a sense of belonging. Canada needs more of that, rather than less.
Rare, violent crimes should increase our vigilance. They should not make us live in fear or drive us back to our homes. Our answer to brutality should be grief, and then a shared, defiant cry that we are still in this together.