Our community needs our courthouse!
Here’s something you can do about it
Tell them to abandon this dangerous plan to close community courthouses before a large group of people are made to suffer.
Click here to easily write to the Attorney General and your MPP!
Click on the link above and your email program should pop up with an email already addressed and filled out – just add your name at the bottom.
If you’d like to CC your own MPP as well, this link will help you find their email address. Just copy it and paste it into the CC field.
Link not working?
If the link above doesn’t open the email, just copy-and-paste the text to the right or below into an email.
Please don’t forget to add your name at the bottom.
Text of Email
To: attorneygeneral@ontario.ca
bcc: saveourcommunitycourts@opseu.org
Email subject: Our community needs our courthouse!
Dear Attorney General,
I’m writing to demand you abandon your dangerous plan to close courthouses in Scarborough, Etobicoke, and North York and consolidate justice services at the New Toronto Courthouse (NTC) in the downtown core.
Many will be hurt: our communities, our small business owners, justice system participants, court workers, and the justice system itself.
The people using our local courthouses — including victims, witnesses and accused — live far from Toronto’s downtown. Many cannot afford a day of lost wages, caregiver costs, and transit fees, so amalgamation will end up increasing justice system costs because of delayed cases, increased arrest warrants, and thrown-out cases.
Many businesses in communities hardest hit by the pandemic – Scarborough, Etobicoke, and North York – rely on customers from nearby community courthouses. How many will be forced to close if their local courthouses are closed?
Court workers are facing potential lay-offs. Or long and expensive daily commutes to and from downtown that will keep them from their families and their communities.
I am also very concerned about the safety of the NTC itself. The building has only four elevators – not nearly enough to make social distancing possible in a facility with 63 courtrooms. Everybody in the facility, including workers and participants, may be at risk of both disease and potentially violence.
For all these reasons, I urge you to abandon this dangerous plan. Consolidate only the downtown courthouses at the NTC, and let our courthouses in Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York continue providing their vital services to our communities, in our communities.
Sincerely,
[Please add your name here]