Roundtable on gangs and gun violence held in wake of deadly Salsa on St. Clair shooting

A roundtable discussion on the aftermath of the deadly Salsa on St. Clair shooting was held Monday morning. Janice Golding has more.

Marilyn Solano says her son witnessed a young woman getting shot in the neck during the last weekend’s Salsa on St. Clair festival, as she protected her 10-year-old daughter from getting trampled on.

Solano was one of several people who took part in a roundtable Monday morning that called on all levels of government to do more and do better, after two people were killed and another five were injured when gunshots rang out at the popular community event on July 12. Police previously said around 13,000 people were at Salsa on St. Clair at the time of the shooting.

Organized by the festival’s co-sponsor, TLN (Telelatino) Media, the meeting aimed to address the issue of gangs and gun violence at festivals in Toronto.

Sponsor threatening to withdraw support

Telelatino, a multicultural specialty TV channel, along with Canada Salsa Festivals Project, issued a statement following the mass shooting, saying they’ll discontinue their involvement in the 22-year-old event unless city officials ”provide concrete commitments to enhance policing and security on and around St. Clair Avenue.”

“We refuse to subject any of our people, friends, clients and community supporters to situations where public officials responsible for preventing crime and ensuring public safety resist the community’s calls to do better,” they wrote.

Aldo Di Felice, the managing partner of TLM Media Group, reiterated during the roundtable that many don’t want to return to Salsa on St. Clair, including his team, “unless things change.”

Experts weigh in on gun violence

During the roundtable. a number of experts as well as politicians weighed in on what was behind the mass shooting and what should be done to ensure gun violence doesn’t happen again at festivals or anywhere for that matter.

Rafael Gomez, the co-author of an Attorney’s General’s 2021 report on causes and policy remedies for gun and gang violence, said he can say with “99% certainty” that the individuals responsible for last weekend’s shooting “have a rap sheet as long as my arm.”

“They will have either have been charged before with gun offenses or have already been charged with a shooting,” he said.

Dr. Irvin Studin, who was nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for his work studying worldwide school closures during the pandemic, says Ontario, which faced some of the longest lockdowns in the world, created this “great calamity.”

“Over 100,000 Canadian kids, regular kids of all walks of life, disappeared from the schooling system,” said Studin, who is the author of ‘Never Close the Schools Again. Ever!’

“They never came back. They were not homeschooled. They were not online school, zero schooling. That’s the size of the entire north of Canada.”

Bail, sentencing reforms discussed

And while youth programming was discussed during the roundtable, more emphasis was placed on new bail and sentencing reforms. It’s timely as 80 changes to the Criminal Code just came into effect.

“Our hope is that the provinces and the police will enforce these laws as they are required to do,” Eglinton-Lawrence MP Vince Gasparro said.

That’s something police hailed as a “fantastic way to move forward.”

“It’s very frustrating to have an investigation knowing that the person would be out in the next couple of days,” Supt. Ryan Forde, of Toronto Police Service, added.

Coun. Mike Colle, who lives in the area and also represents Eglinton-Lawrence, agreed.

“It’s not the police who do the catch and release. The police do the catching. Our laws do the releasing,” he lamented.

‘Additional resources’ deployed to St. Clair: TPS

And while a robust discussion was had on Monday morning, few concrete measures were discussed at the roundtable, apart from one Toronto police superintendent saying they’ll be deploying “additional resources on St. Clair” and that they’re “exploring other opportunities to provide CCTV.”

Neither Mayor Olivia Chow nor Chief Myron Demkiw were in attendance.

Toronto police did not provide an update on their investigation today, only saying that it is ongoing.

Salsa on St. Clair draws more than a million people a year, which to contextualize is nearly the same number of attendees as Pride Toronto.