Anna Voskuil | News Editor
Victoria Silman | Assistant News Editor
Featured Image: The devastating attack brought Toronto together as one. | Mahdis Habibinia
On an unseasonably sunny afternoon on April 23, the nation shifted its attention to a 2 km stretch of Yonge Street in North Toronto.
Leaving my house that day, I never could have imagined what I was about to witness. My boyfriend and I were just going to go to the gym at Yonge and Lawrence, and perhaps get a bite to eat somewhere on a patio afterwards. But when we drove up to Yonge Street from Sheppard Avenue a little after 1:30 p.m., the traffic was backed up. It was puzzling—why was there all this traffic on a Monday afternoon?
We decided to drive northbound instead and go to the Tait McKenzie Centre—a decision that would ingrain unforgettable
images into my memory.
At Mel Lastman Square, it almost appeared like a festival was going on. There were hundreds of people lining the street and security overseeing the area. That’s when we saw CPR being performed on two people. I distinctly remember a man in beige performing chest compressions on what appeared to be a woman.
Up ahead, two more people were lying on the ground, with helpful bystanders rushing to their aid. I caught myself saying: “Was there a shooting?”
We continued up the street in the opposite direction the attack occurred. More people lay injured along the sidewalks, with glass strewn from shattered bus shelters.
At 1:48 p.m., before it hit the news, I sent a message to my family to assure them I was safe. It read: “I just want to let everyone know we’re okay, but I think there was an attack on Yonge Street north of Sheppard. There are bodies all the way up to Finch.”
It took 18 minutes for my mind to understand what had just occurred around us. 18 minutes to understand that the lives of
the hundreds of people around me witnessing the event would be changed, and 18 minutes to understand that there was a lot of life ending around me.
But before those 18 minutes were up, I recognized the incredible response of the Toronto community—a response we would come to know as #TorontoStrong.
We would later learn that at approximately 1:30 p.m., a rented Ryder van began mowing people down heading southbound from Finch Avenue. Once the attack was over, the stretch of Yonge lay strewn with victims, primarily female. Ten people between the ages of 22 and 94 were killed and 16 others were injured.
The reason? “Incel rebellion.”
“Incel” stands for “involuntary celibate” and has introduced the nation to a dark online culture. It refers to a group of people, primarily men, who consider themselves forced into celibacy because women are not attracted to them. Online communities such as Reddit and 4chan are the most prominent places for self- proclaimed incels to congregate.
A student who wishes to remain anonymous discusses his experience with the subreddit r/incel, which has since been banned from the site. They explain how r/incel was “a very, very bleak place.”
“Originally my friends sent it to me as a joke, and while I find a lot of things funny, that subreddit was really depressing,” they say.
The subreddit was banned in November for violating reddit’s policy against promoting and inciting violence.
Although the community was banned, a new forum sprung up on Reddit, called r/braincels. Here, those who call themselves incels congregate to discuss their frustrations.
Despite the similarities in content, the subreddit dons a pinned submission at the top of the subreddit posted three weeks ago, titled “Braincels does not support the Toronto attack.”
The poster further explains: “r/Braincels does not support, encourage, or glorify any violence or physical harm, or those who commit such crimes.”
Regarding the issue of violence, the anonymous student further explains: “From my time visiting the sub, I saw angry misogynists and depressed guys with low self esteem. I don’t think most of them have those kinds of violent tendencies.”
Chatter of “Chads” and “Stacys” appears in a majority of posts, and the general unhappiness with the status-quo of appearance-before-
personality dominates message boards.
Within the incel community, Chads and Stacys refer to men who are successful with women (Chads), and women who reject the incels (Stacys).
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that between those aged 15 to 24, 27.2 per cent of men and 28.6 per cent of women are sexless.
It’s often been predicted that while this is equally prevalent between both genders, it is more often men who openly express sexual frustration, presumably due to gender-based societal views equating sex with masculinity, relational happiness, and success.
Others predict possible factors motivating the incel movement could be ethnicity, especially if the they live within a cultural group that can make dating more difficult and rejects them.
A lack of social development or social skills may also be possible, either due to anxiety and fear of rejection when approaching women, or neurodevelopmental disabilities like autism, which inherently come with challenges in learning social cues, such as body language, tone of voice, and flirting.
It is often due to these reasons that incels tend to feel withdrawn and isolated due to lack of social interaction, and tend to project said emotions outward.
It is important to clarify that while it is possible for some incels to fall somewhere on the autism spectrum, it should not imply that all people with autism will commit a violent crime such as the one on April 23. In fact, studies have shown that those with autism are more likely to be the victims of violent crime, rather than perpetrators.
When asked about the prediction of violence coming from the incel community, the anonymous student explains that it was something they anticipated as a possibility.
“I would have never thought it would be a van attack specifically but given the toxicity some of those users displayed, there was bound to be violent outbursts,” they explain.
While much of the focus of understanding this attack may be on the ideology of a group that appears far removed from mainstream society, it is crucial we understand the specific subset of violence it can fall under, one that may not appear too far from our general understanding: gender-based violence (GBV).
It is unfortunately one that is deeply rooted in a societal trait that impacts all, and can at times be viewed passively: socially-
expected and enforced gender roles.
According to legal definitions, GBV is violence that targets groups or individuals solely on the basis of gender. It includes violence particularly committed against women—as well as women who have failed to conform to restrictive gender norms—such as sexual assault, rape, dowry burning, female circumcision, torture, murder, forced impregnation, mutilation, and sexual slavery.
Heidi Matthews, an assistant professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, focuses her research primarily on the contemporary shifts in the practice and discourse of the global legal regulation of political violence, paying particular attention to aesthetic, critical, and political theory, as well as history and gender.
Matthews points to how the April 23 attack differs from others of its kind: “The Toronto van attack is unique in the history of Canada because the suspect, despite his pleas to be shot by the police, was apprehended alive. In most instances of mass killings directed specifically against women, including the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, the suspects have committed suicide.”
She continues by discussing the issue of GBV, and how it impacts various groups differently through an inter-sectional lens: “Mass murder is not the paradigmatic form of gender-based violence in Canada, nor is this violence limited to women. The most vulnerable members of our society, including Indigenous peoples, sex workers, the poor, and the mentally ill are disproportionately affected by GBV.
“This is evidenced by the Robert Pickton serial murders, the Highway of Tears, and most recently the case of Bruce McArthur, who is accused of murdering several men in Toronto’s gay village.
“The underlying problem in these cases—the thing that made these victims vulnerable—is social marginalization and economic inequality.”
Taking the vulnerability of those most at risk for GBV, Matthews is skeptical of the role of the criminal law, especially the law of terrorism, in providing a solution: “Rather than relying on the criminal law as the solution to gender-based violence in Canada, we need to engage in social reforms that will reduce these populations’ vulnerability.
“Reforming Canada’s laws around sex work in a way that gives sex workers autonomy over their working conditions, thereby enhancing their security, would be a step forward as well.”
Following the attack on Yonge and Finch, many were left confused with the term incel, perhaps never having heard the word prior, and may have been unsure on how society should properly respond to groups such as these.
To Matthews, one of the primary solutions for these future responses is: “We need to examine why these men are behaving as they are, and start an open political dialogue with ‘incel’ and other related groups.
“We need social and political strategies for engaging these men, so as to de-radicalize them.”
The #TorontoStrong movement has proven to be a significant aspect to community healing, bringing the Canadian community closer together in solidarity for the Yonge and Finch tragedy, hashtags like #TorontoStrong and #PrayForToronto circulated quickly on Twitter, used by the likes of Canadian icons such as Scott Moir and Jim Carrey, as well as Canadian citizens and politicians alike.
#TorontoStrong has also received a flood of international support from the Royal Family, as well as a tweet from Australian actor Nicholas Hamilton: “Feeling for all the victims and their families after the attack in Toronto. My family and I used to ride our bikes up Yonge Street during the filming of IT, two summers ago. Terrifying that such a beautiful place could be the scene of such a disgusting crime. #PrayForToronto.”
Also under the name of #TorontoStrong was a fundraiser, established by Mayor John Tory, the City of Toronto, and the Toronto Foundation, raising $2.8 million in funds from businesses such as RBC, TD Bank, LCBO, Rogers, Sun Life Financial, and a variety of others.
The #TorontoStrong Fund aimed to put these donations towards victim services, such as emotional support, and cost coverage for funeral care, body repatriation, trauma counselling, and familial support. Other objectives of the Fund is to identify organizations involved in the aftermath of the attack, and engage charities focused on related social issues to play a role in future prevention.
A vigil on April 29 for the tragedy, held at Mel Lastman Square, aimed to be a source of community healing and promote peace over violence and hatred, and welcomed multiple religious groups in the event’s proceedings.
About 25,000 mourners attended, joined by politicians such as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, Tory, Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The vigil was led by the City of Toronto with assistance from groups including Faith in the City and the Toronto Area Interfaith Council, as well as Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama`at Canada, who distributed flowers to attendees.
Thousands walked around the vigil, holding signs that read “Love For All, Hatred For None.”
Excalibur offers its deepest condolences to the friends and loved ones of the Toronto van attack victims, and to pay its respects to the victims: Andrea Bradden, 33; Anne Marie D’ Amico, 30; Beutis Renuka Amarasingha, 45; Chul Min “Eddie” Kang, 45; Dorothy Sewell, 80; Geraldine Brady, 83; Ji Hun Kim, 22; Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Forsyth, 94; Munir Abdo Habib Najjar, 85; and So He Chung, 22.
