Roundup: Toronto seized under 11th extreme cold alert this winter

Toronto is in the grip of inordinately cold temperatures as the biggest city in Canada is placed on Friday under its 11th extreme cold weather alert this winter.

The alert was issued by the city's Medical Officer of Health Dr. David McKeown, when temperatures are set to reach minus 15 degrees Celsius or colder, according to Environment Canada's forecast.

Temperatures are expected to fall throughout the day to minus 12 degrees Celsius with a wind chill near minus 23 by Friday afternoon. The alert is in effect until further notice.

Toronto has a minus 15 degrees Celsius minimum temperature requirement to sound the extreme weather alert. As the temperatures were hovering just below this threshold, it took the death of two men to spark the City of Toronto's response.

Toronto is known for its bitterly cold winters, which is deadly for the 200,000 people who use homeless shelters Two men died on Jan. 5 and 6 as a result of the cold snap. A third died in a shelter after being exposed to the weather.

As the deaths were publicized, over 2,000 protesters and supporters of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty gathered on Jan. 6 outside of Toronto City Hall, demanding the newly-elected Mayor John Tory open up the emergency warming centers and call the alert for emergency responses to assist the city's homeless population.

Toronto's Medical Officer of Health normally makes the decision to open the centers but the demonstrators' strident pleas forced the mayor, who took office on Dec. 1, 2014, to step in and help those in need. This occurred as the city sounded an official severe temperatures warning. Temperatures on Jan. 7 were around the minus 30 degrees with wind chills.

Last January witnessed Toronto's worst winter in decades, with 16 alerts. This winter all alerts were called in January, as the average temperature so far this month was minus 11 degrees Celsius with wind chills pushing it to an average low of minus 23.

Friday's cold alert once again opened up the 24-hour warming shelters for the homeless and the public was advised to curtail errands until the alert is canceled later in the weekend.

Since the city halted building affordable houses in the 1980s, Toronto's homeless situation has been under study for several years with no adequate responses.

Mayor Tory said the homelessness issue was under review and will produce some future results. "The death of anyone on the streets of Toronto, any single person ever, is one too many," Tory told reporters, "We have to redouble our efforts."

Stephen Gaetz, a York University professor and director of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, said "We don't need research, we know what the problem is, and we know what the solution is."

"Absolutely, homelessness and the bitter cold is a big challenge and a complex problem. Our service plan does acknowledge that this is not a problem that can be solved by the City alone, and will involve partnership with other service systems, such as health and corrections. At the same time we do what we can to assist people with the resources we have available," Laural Raine, a shelter policy consultant of City of Toronto, told Xinhua.

A review confirms that over 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in any given year and 150,000 Canadians a year use a homeless shelter. A total of 30,000 Canadians are homeless every night with 50,000 Canadians being part of the "hidden homeless".

The figures come from the Canadian Homelessness Research Network and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, the groups behind what they call the first extensive national report card on homelessness.

The extreme winter alert was not just for Toronto but was issued earlier this week as the east coast of Canada and the United States braced for "snowmageddon," a term coined to demonstrate the effects of a large weather system that was forecast to dump over 3 feet of snow from New York to Maine and up to the maritime provinces in Canada. Endite