Krissan reflects, “If you're from a well-connected or from a well-to-do neighbourhood or family, you're going to get professional photos taken throughout the course of your life, just by you existing in that family. Here, you might not even get a haircut. I didn't get a haircut from a professional barber until I was 23, and there's a lot of youth like that in this community.”
“In Toronto, youth unemployment is at 20 per cent and if it’s 20 per cent in Toronto, it’s much worse in Scarborough just because of racism and employment discrimination as it exists,” Krissan Veerasingam said. “We want to see not just Conrad’s providing these opportunities, but also the government has to step up and provide these opportunities as well, because it’s such a systemic issue.”
Veerasingam says the interim bus lanes implemented by the city are a “Band-Aid solution,” and that a transit line like the Eglinton East LRT would require financial backing from the province and the federal government. “When we don't prioritize these projects that serve the most underserved people in our community, the effect is felt wider than just this transit project,” said Veerasingam.
When neighbors come to these shared spaces and meet each other, real change starts, he says. “If you don’t know your neighbor, how are you going to change the space around you?
“Things like mental health to air quality, all of it is a big problem in Scarborough and these green spaces are the least we can do to sort of fight back. They’re not the full solution, but they’re a critical piece in the wider strategy,”
"Once a month, volunteers gather in a Scarborough, Ont., community centre to fix broken appliances, bicycles, housewares and computers and mend torn clothing – all for free. The Mid-Scarborough Hub Repair Café was launched 18 months ago by Krissan Veerasingam and Fizza Khalid, a couple on a mission to make Scarborough a kinder, greener place."
Learn more about Krissan and the Scarborough Environmental Association at Change Made's public art installation launch at Scarborough Museum (@tohistorymuseums)
A Scarborough grassroots organization has created an interactive map of ethnic grocery stories in the area. The creators hope it can help more people access culturally-specific food — and that it will bring communities together.
"If you think of what ties a neighbourhood together, it's places where people go," says Veerasingam, who led a food tour last summer highlighting places to eat along the now-shuttered Scarborough RT line. "You’ll see familiar faces week after week in places where you build connections with other customers and the people who work there."
Krissan Veerasingam, board member for transit advocacy group TTCriders said underinvestment in transit in Scarborough comes at a cost of "time being stolen from us." "I'm certain the price of beginning construction on the busway pales in comparison to the costs being borne by Scarborough residents," he said.
“If we want to expand ridership in Scarborough, we have to make the experience as pleasant as possible,” said Krissan Veerasingam, a Scarborough resident who is on the board of transit advocacy group TTCriders. “Seventy buses an hour is very hard to do in an efficient manner on a bus lane. You need a dedicated space that a busway would provide.”
Krissan Veerasingam notes that for more than 22,000 daily riders, the RT’s upcoming closure will mean a loss of critical access. “There’s a pretty big group of people who only rely on transit, like me — who primarily use the RT to get around,” he said. “And for those people, visiting these restaurants is a lot easier with the RT.”
"If we had the same drive to benefit people who are lower income, who rely on transit. We would make more of a difference for more people" - Krissan Veerasingam