WARMINGTON: Time for the Guardian Angels to spread wings in Toronto?

Some 40 years after their first try, the Guardian Angels are being lobbied to ride back into crime-ridden Toronto again.

“I am getting phone calls,” said founder Curtis Sliwa.

It’s ironic how critics accuse Sliwa and his volunteers in red berets of wanting to be cops when it’s now police in blue being guardian angels on the TTC. Both play their roles well. But only the police are out on overtime.

“We don’t ask for anything,” the Guardian Angels founder said from New York Friday. “It’s free, free, free.”

Time for a new Toronto chapter? If this new 80 cops a day roaming the TTC initiative doesn’t bring violent crime down, it just may happen.

Mayor John Tory is the first mayor ever who didn’t shoot down the possibility.

“Mayor Tory appreciates hearing ideas from Curtis Sliwa and others on this issue,” said spokesperson Taylor Deasley. “Everyone, including Mayor Tory, wants the TTC to be safe.”

Safety is the most important thing.

While “right now, Mayor Tory is entirely focused on working with the TTC and Chief Demkiw and the Toronto Police Service to deploy more police officers throughout the transit system,” it’s positive that he has an open mind and is willing to consider outside the box solutions.

It’s refreshing because for four decades, the door to the Guardian Angels has been slammed shut.

In New York City, and in 130 cities in 13 countries, you can see Guardian Angels on transit, walking through the city, on patrol as a deterrent. But they are also trained in CPR, anti-suicide measures, providing help to overdosing addicts, and how to detain people wielding a weapon.

1. 

   WARMINGTON: 80 cops on the TTC won't solve all problems but it's a good start

2. 

   WARMINGTON: TTC can't brag it's 'The Better Way' any more. It's now a dangerous war zone

3. 

   WARMINGTON: Toronto's subway platforms have become homeless shelters

When you see TTC stabbings, or the woman being pushed down TTC stairs over a purse, or bus drivers or passengers being shot with a BB gun, or riders shoved on to the subway track, it’s hard to imagine how more eyes wouldn’t help.

“We make a difference,” said Sliwa, who has been shot in an assassination attempt on his life, as well as stabbed and punched. “I remember when Mayor Ed Koch referred to us as the Hell’s Angels but then later said the Guardian Angels ‘are like chicken soup that may help you but won’t hurt you.’”

On a potential Toronto comeback, the radio host and Republican candidate for New York mayor last year said if they can find people extremely committed, he’s willing to try again.

“We will train them to be Guardian Angels but other than that it would be very much a Toronto chapter,” Sliwa said.

It’s been tried here before. First in 1983, then in 1992, and again in 2006. Each time unsuccessfully.

First, Mayor Art Eggleton resisted help for Cabbagetown, Regent Park and the Jane-Finch Corridor. Mayor Mel Lastman was not interested during the Parkdale crack problem. And Mayor David Miller didn’t bite after the Boxing Day murder of Jane Creba.

“I remember Mel wouldn’t meet with the Guardian Angels but shook hands with the Hell’s Angels,” Sliwa said laughing. “We have always had political pushback. We get called a vigilante group but we have never been that. We work well with police and the public love us.”

Another irony, said Sliwa, is the current Blue Angels patrols on the TTC will run into the same funding issues the Guardian Angels have.

“They are doing this on overtime. This was tried in New York too,” he said. “It’s unsustainable. I give it three months.”

That certainly would be enough time to get the Guardian Angels operational in Toronto.

All Toronto has to do, said Sliwa, is pick up the phone and call.

“The Guardian Angels are there if Toronto needs us.”

jwarmington@postmedia.com