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APPEL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-07-17 published
She cherished them all
By Val ROSS, Page R1
Bluma APPEL gave advice to so many people in the arts - from producers to mere reporters - she couldn't possibly remember all their names. No matter, to the Toronto-based philanthropist who died on Sunday of lung cancer at the age of 86, everyone was "dear."
That endearment even applied to the trainload of comedians whom APPEL and Byron BELLOWS, her personal assistant and long-time friend, joined en route to the annual Canadian Comedy Awards in London, Ontario
"I don't think she missed an awards," says Mark Breslin, comedy impresario.
APPEL helped to establish the awards, started in 2000, and supported a $10,000 bursary for emerging comics; as with all of her widely dispersed acts of philanthropy, the amount wasn't huge, but the impact was.
"It's the only time I can think of," Breslin says, "that anyone from the Canadian establishment took comedy seriously."
Establishment? Emerging from a hard-working, Montreal Jewish family, Bluma LEVITT entered the philanthropy world thanks to what she called "indulgence" from her husband, entrepreneur-millionaire Bram APPEL.
In her early adulthood, she tried her hand at so many ventures - women's suit designer, political adviser, investor in theatre projects - that she seemed confident about knocking on any door.
"We've been in her apartment on Hazelton Avenue [in Toronto's Yorkville district] when she's gone to her phone and called the Prime Minister's Office to find out about support for one of our tours," says Marshall Pynkoski, co-artistic director of Opera Atelier.
APPEL was an early supporter of his 22-year-old company, he says, because "she was looking to invest in people and organizations where her money would make a difference, it would make a return. She was very much Bram's wife."
Over the years, she became Opera Atelier's most influential patron, and not just in financial terms: She restructured the board, and shook down other patrons. "From the minute she gave, she felt she could ask other people. She told us, 'You identify givers, then you encircle them.' " Pynkoski did not realize that two weeks ago, when she wrote a $25,000 cheque that wiped out the company's deficit, it would be one of her last acts.
APPEL was a woman of strong opinions. Last December, when Canadian Stage was planning to mount a production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie (a play about the young antiwar protester who was crushed by an Israeli Defence Force bulldozer,) APPEL's was one of the loudest voices warning of the play's potential anti-Israeli effect on public opinion.
Few were surprised when Canadian Stage, whose main venue is the Bluma Appel Theatre, cancelled the production. "She would never fail to tell me if she loved or hated something," says Marty Bragg, the company's artistic producer. "But she was one of us. Her second sentence to me the day I met her was, 'Don't ever forget, Marty, I'm a producer too.' "
Producers are people who put talents and money together, and at this she excelled. She was breakfasting with Friends in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, in 2002, Bellows recalls, when the group learned that Willowbank, a stately home built in 1834, faced demolition. American descendants of the owner wanted to save it, but could not get charitable status in Canada.
"Bluma said, 'Give me your cellphone,' " Bellows says. "She called lawyers, and in a week we'd launched American Friends of Canada."
Willowbank was saved, and is now the home of the School of Restoration Arts (the only one in North America), which offers courses in architectural heritage preservation.
A former art student, APPEL was keenly interested in the Ontario College of Art and Design. Two years ago she launched an annual design scholarship. "Her generosity was personal," Ontario College of Art and Design president Sara DIAMOND says. "She came to the students' shows, she was involved. We all thought she'd be around for a long time."
Helen BURSTYN is chair of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the last board on which APPEL served. "She gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she was careful," BURSTYN says. "She helped by telling people, in effect, 'You'd better not miss this, it's special.' And she was wickedly funny."

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APPEL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-07-17 published
She was a 'marvellous example of commitment to the public good'
Even as a teenager growing up in Montreal, she possessed a hatred of intolerance, writes Sandra MARTIN. It was a theme that later wove through the many disparate parts of a hugely complicated life to embrace politics, the arts, health care, social justice and human rights
By Sandra MARTIN, Page▼ S8
Blunt, buoyant and bountiful, she was always known as Bluma. A dogged fundraiser and networker, she had a flinty sensor for injustice and intolerance, a lifelong love of the arts and a passion for fixing things, people and the world.
Irreverent and possessed of a wicked sense of humour, she loved to say that her husband, Bram APPEL, made the money and she spent it. A friend once said the Appels were involved with everything but racehorses; Ms. APPEL shot back: "Bram says you can lose more on plays." On their 25th wedding anniversary, Mr. APPEL gave his wife a spectacular ring, but she, with his permission, took it back to the jeweller and spent the money on a play, instead. "He's lucky I didn't ask for extra money," she joked.
"She wanted to help society, but I can tell you this," Ms. APPEL's elder son, David, said yesterday. "If she had gone into business, anybody who backed her would have made a fortune. She knew everybody and she could get into any door, but she used all of that for philanthropy or to support interesting cultural causes."
A non-conformist, Ms. APPEL "created spaces and places for herself where she didn't have to compete with others," said long-time friend and colleague Patrice Marin Best. "But I also believe she was gifted with a kind of foresight or intuition. Because she was curious and she read very widely, she was always picking up snippets of things and thinking about how they fit together."
"She was very effective," former federal politician Marc Lalonde said yesterday, commenting on the breadth of the causes and issues she supported. "She could not see a problem and remain indifferent to it. She was a marvellous example of commitment to the public good."
Her father, Jack LEVITT, came from Vilna, Lithuania, and her mother, Dora, from Kovna, Russia, probably around 1905 as Jewish emigration from czarist Russia surged because of wide-scale repression and fear of pogroms. Her father, who made a living initially selling photographs on Montreal street corners, went into the textile business and eventually formed a prosperous company called Town Hall Clothes. The youngest of four children, Bluma (which means flower in Yiddish) grew up in a hard-working, socially conscious environment in Outremont.
She learned French at a young age (and later mastered Spanish and Italian), and was Friends with a young Pierre Trudeau. She was also involved in the same little theatre group as Herbert Whittaker, the late theatre critic of The Globe and Mail.
She went to high school in Montreal but never attended university. In a speech to the Canadian Club in April, she said she had refused to take the entrance examinations for McGill University in 1936 because, "being Jewish, I needed straight A-plus to qualify." Since B-minus was good enough for anyone else, this struck her as unfair. So, even as a teenager, she possessed a hatred of intolerance, a theme that wove through the many disparate parts of a hugely complicated life that embraced politics, the arts, health care, social justice and international human rights.
In 1937, she was introduced to a young chartered accountant named Bram APPEL at a hotel in the Laurentians, north of Montreal. He had a canny head for numbers and a good eye for investment opportunities. Because he had trouble finding a job, he started his own company, then helped to found a high-tech firm based on the clean filtration systems invented by scientist David Pall, a friend from his student days at McGill.
The APPELs married on July 11, 1940, and had two sons, David (1941) and Mark (1944.) As a young wife and mother, Ms. APPEL made a career out of volunteering. "I learned early on you enter every door open to you," she said in her Canadian Club speech. "A locked door particularly intrigued me and I never gave up looking for the key."
Growing up, said David, "our home was filled with laughter and intense discussion." He described his mother as a dynamo. "The passport into our home had nothing to do with your station, but whether you were interesting and what you brought of yourself. It was an incredibly febrile and exciting environment. You take it for granted, but, in retrospect, you see the extent to which our mother and father enriched our lives."
Although she was drawn to the creative process, her prodigious energies and talents did not reside in the making of art. She said that, after six months of piano lessons when she was 6, her teacher begged her not to come back; at 13, she joined an after-school painting class but all her attempts at figurative work turned into abstracts. As for acting, "I couldn't even get a part in a mob scene." For a time, she tried identifying and supporting the creation of various art forms by becoming part-owner of Waddington's art gallery in Montreal in 1957 and producing plays in the 1960s in New York City, including a short-lived off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Maids and Olympia Dukakis's first play, The Opening of a Window.
Her real talent lay in fundraising. There are four crucial steps, she liked to explain. "First, you decide on your victims." And then you stalk, encircle and entrap them. In a typical campaign, she would begin by appealing to her "victim's" better nature and, if that didn't work, would quickly switch to "fear, greed and guilt."
When she was on the prowl, she never limited herself to one project at a time. In 1955, she was in Geneva to help her husband run the booth for Pall Corp. Filtration, which was exhibiting at a commercial venue, and dropped in at the first Atoms for Peace Conference in an adjoining building. There, she just happened to meet physicists and Nobel Prize winners Isadore Rabi and Sir John Cockroft, who, among other eminent scientists, had gathered to try to chain nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
In the mid-1960s, the APPELs moved from Montreal to Ottawa (although they always kept a home in their native city) so Mr. APPEL could take a position as executive assistant to Jean-Luc Pépin when he was the minister of energy, mines and resources in Lester Pearson's last Liberal government. During their Ottawa years - the APPELs moved to Toronto in 1979 - she worked for secretary of state Gérard Pelletier at $1 a year.
That connection led her, in 1970, to Marc Lalonde, then principal secretary to Mr. Trudeau. After granting her a 15-minute interview, she showed up in her mink coat and hat and pleaded her case to have the prime minister attend a dinner to launch the American Friends of Canada, an organization that persuaded wealthy Americans to give works of art to Canadian museums in return for a tax credit. She had inveigled David Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Armand Hammer to sit on her board. Ms. APPEL ran overtime and Mr. Lalonde showed her the door. "I was probably the first one to ever kick her out of an office," he said yesterday. Seeing how flummoxed she was, Mr. Lalonde organized another meeting and they became fast Friends.
In 1972, Mr. Lalonde ran for office and became secretary of state for the status of women and quickly appointed her as his personal representative at the usual fee of $1 a year. Her big push was to have women on the boards of directors of the major banks. She would walk in with her mink coat and hat and would argue with bank presidents, Mr. Lalonde said yesterday. "She could give better than she could receive… Lo and behold, slowly, the banks started appointing women and, a few years later, it became a point of honour for them to appoint women."
In 1979, Ms. APPEL ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in the federal election. She then moved to Toronto with her husband and took on the rest of the country. Always one to sense an issue that was about to develop into a crisis, Ms. APPEL became deeply involved in the community of activists that banded together in the 1980s to found the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research.
Her lifelong love of music and the theatre prompted her to invest heavily in terms of time, energy and money in the Toronto theatre scene. She was a big supporter of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, which named one of its theatres in her honour in March of 1983 after she made a donation to help renovate the 876-seat theatre. She was also a significant force behind Opera Atelier. In June of 2005, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts gave Ms. APPEL an honorary Dora Mavor Moore Award "for her exceptional and lifelong dedication" to the performing arts in Canada.
About two years ago, she began to feel unwell. But, with her characteristic verve, she carried on as though nothing were bothering her. In June of 2006, Ms. APPEL, the woman who had never attended university, was given an honorary degree by the University of Toronto. The severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in Toronto in 2003 had focused Ms. APPEL's attention on nurses and their vulnerability in caring for infectious patients, so she donated $350,000 to help the Faculty of Nursing establish a Clinical Simulation Learning centre within the new Health Sciences Building at the U of T's St. George campus.
When she was named Canadian of the Year at a luncheon at the Canadian Club on April 30, she appeared with a neck brace and spoke with a raspy voice. Although she was never a smoker, she was diagnosed with lung cancer in May. Ms. APPEL took the opportunity of the Canadian Club award to speak out against Islamist extremism and to plead for open dialogue among Arab, Jewish and Muslim communities. "Let us return to a time when tolerance was not shrouded in silence born of great fear, but of loud and raucous debate, born of great hope."
Last month, she was given an honorary degree by Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario Here's the advice she gave the graduates in her convocation address: "Stay curious. Don't make the same mistake twice, life is rough - it is a battle for turf - so learn by observation - take notes - write memos. Listen to opinions but not to the opinionated. Do not tolerate intolerance. Cherish the environment. Keep an open mind and stick to your principles. And dream big dreams!" In closing, she told the students that "the two most important issues we face are the deterioration of the environment, and the increase in the number of extreme fundamentalist groups."
Clearly, she was gearing up for another campaign, but, this time, her seemingly impervious energy was felled by illness. About 10 days ago, she was admitted to hospital. That's where she celebrated her 67th wedding anniversary, on July 11. Her husband swept into the room with a bouquet of yellow roses, then sat by her bedside holding her hand.
Bluma APPEL's birth certificate says she was born in Montreal on September 4, 1919, but she always claimed 1920 as her date of birth. She died of lung cancer in Princess Margaret Hospital on July 14, 2007. She was either 86 or 87. She is survived by her husband, Bram, two sons, five grandchildren, her sister Goldie EPSTEIN of Montreal and her extended family. The funeral is today at 1 p.m. at Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel in Toronto.

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APPEL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-10 published
APPEL, Abraham
On Monday October 8, 2007 at Toronto Western Hospital. Bram APPEL beloved husband of the late Bluma APPEL. Loving father and father-in-law of David and Carol, and Mark and Gail Rose. Dear brother of the late Harry APPEL, Bella SMALL, Sam APPEL, and Jerry APPEL. Devoted grandfather of Jackie, Alix, James, Jonathan and Allene, and Liz. At Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel, 2401 Steeles Ave. W (3 lights west of Dufferin) for service on Wednesday October 10, 2007 at 11: 30 a.m. Interment Community Section of Pardes Shalom Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to The Bram Appel School Based Project in Sunset Park, North Bay, Ontario, c/o Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, 440 Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y 2H4, 416 924-1164 X 3343.

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APPEL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-17 published
Venture capitalist understood both ends of the corporate ladder
A man who liked to say he didn't so much as invest in a company as back a friend, his greatest success came from backing an invention by a lifelong pal, writes Sandra MARTIN
By Sandra MARTIN, Page▲ S10
An astute observer of human character and an extremely successful venture capitalist, Bram APPEL grew up on St. Urbain Street in Montreal - as unlike Mordecai Richler's Duddy Kravitz as it is possible to be. He trained as a chartered accountant, but what interested him most about doing someone's books was engaging in conversation about how a business worked, and learning its strengths and weaknesses. His inquisitive mind and ability to engage people made him an appealing conversationalist, but it was his integrity and deep sense of right and wrong that made him lasting Friends on both ends of the corporate ladder.
His earliest and biggest financial success came from backing an invention by his friend David PALL, a brilliant physical chemist he had met while they were both impoverished students at McGill University in the 1930s. That initial investment of $3,000 grew like yeast. Today, Pall Corp., a leader in filtration, separations and purification applications in industry and the biological and health sciences, has annual sales in excess of $2-billion (U.S.) and a market capitalization of more than $5-billion.
"The energy and enthusiasm he had for the whole proposition of inventing products, getting them to market widely and getting an organization to succeed and to do good, but to do it at a good profit," is what Eric KRASNOFF, chair and Chief Executive Officer of Pall, remembers most about Mr. APPEL, who only retired as founder-director at 90 in 2005.
"In board meetings, the focus is on the broad picture and new products and new markets, and in the audit meetings he would concentrate on the smallest details, such as how petty cash was managed at our plant in Japan," said Mr. KRASNOFF in a telephone interview. "He believed that you can't look at everything, but, if you look very closely at some of the small things, you get a real picture of how the whole operation is managed and what the culture is. He would come at business from the high, and from the bottom up."
Short of stature, quiet of voice, large of intellect, Mr. APPEL was known as the force behind the Force - the formidable volunteer and social, artistic and political activist Bluma APPEL (obituary, July 17, 2007). Married for 67 years, they were a devoted and complementary couple. Mrs. APPEL once joked that her husband made the money and she spent it. In fact, he was a philanthropist and a supporter of cultural ventures in his own right.
Abraham (Bram) APPEL was born in Montreal in 1915, the fourth son and fifth child of Israel and Sophia (née HECHT) APPEL. The APPELs were from Silesia (most of which is now in Poland) and had immigrated to Montreal in the early years of the last century, probably after the 1905 pogrom. They brought their skills with them - he was a blacksmith, and she sold groceries. They raised their family on St. Urbain Street near Fairmont, now a fashionable part of Montreal but then a working-class and immigrant neighbourhood.
While his struggling father wanted his sons to get out of school and into the work force, Bram aspired to be a professional. With his persuasive tongue and logical mind, he might have made a fine lawyer, but he chose accountancy because it was a faster credential to acquire. He went to McGill in 1931 - when there was said to be a quota system requiring Jewish students to earn higher marks than Christians - held down three jobs (including setting pins in a bowling alley and working as a photographer's assistant), borrowed money and won a scholarship to finance his education. It was at McGill in 1933 that he met David PALL, an impoverished science student from rural Saskatchewan who would become his lifelong friend and business partner.
Mr. APPEL graduated near the top of his class with a bachelor of commerce degree in 1935 and earned his certification the following year to become one of the youngest chartered accountants in Quebec. Partly because he was a loner, partly because of anti-Semitism at the big firms, he opened his own office, Appel and Partners, a partnership that still bears his name.
That summer of 1936, David PALL lent him $35 to pay for a week at a Jewish summer resort in the Laurentians on what may well have been the vacation during which he met Bluma LEVITT, a dynamic young woman with a wry wit and a fervent passion for social justice. They married on July 11, 1940, and soon had two sons: David, who was born in 1941, and Mark, who followed three years later.
David PALL, meanwhile, had graduated with a PhD in physical chemistry from McGill in 1939 and had gone to New York - Mr. APPEL lent him money to buy some furniture for his apartment - to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project, doing research on the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the Second World War. Doctor PALL, who would eventually be the named inventor on more than 180 U.S. patents, liked to chat with Bram about the commercial possibilities for some of his discoveries.
Mr. APPEL knew very little about chemistry, but he was adept at drawing people out about things that mattered to them. During a visit to New York in June of 1944, he listened to Doctor PALL talk about his belief that industry, which was becoming increasingly complicated, would need specialized filters able to cope with high pressures, elevated temperatures and corrosive atmospheres. Dr. PALL thought he would need $15,000 and two years working in his spare time to develop a porous, stainless-steel filter that he felt would have wide industrial applications. Mr. APPEL, who by then was a married man with a wife and two small children, had scraped together $3,000. "Let's go," he said, according to a well-told story. He always liked to say he didn't invest in a company, he backed his friend.
"And that is where it all begins," said his son, David. "They were silent heroes. They didn't look for any kind of recognition, they didn't have to tell you what they were doing, or how well they did. They preferred to operate in the shadows and support others, and very often a lot of what happened came through them and others got the credit."
The company, which initially was called Micro-Metallic Corp., was established in August of 1944. At first, Doctor PALL worked in his garage in Queens and Mr. APPEL travelled to New York on the overnight train once a month to do the books. Like most start-ups, the tiny company had rough times - each potential customer had idiosyncratic needs, and the filters had to be custom-designed in the late 1940s, the bookkeeper mistakenly wrote cheques overdrawing their bank account by $7,000. Mr. APPEL staved off that crisis by borrowing money from an American friend of his brother-in-law.
In 1952, Doctor PALL persuaded his next-door neighbour, Abe KRASNOFF, a Certified Public Accountant with enviable marketing acumen and organizational skills, to join the corporation. (His son Eric, who joined the company in the mid-1970s, is now the chair and Chief Executive Officer.) The company, which changed its name to Pall Corp., began to pay back on Mr. APPEL's original investment by 1958. For the rest of his life, Mr. APPEL loved to boast that he had never sold any of his shares.
Mr. APPEL was not just a businessman. He turned a chance meeting with Jean-Luc Pepin when both were passengers on a ship crossing the Atlantic in August of 1951 into another deep Friendship and career opportunity. When Mr. Pepin was appointed minister of energy, mines and resources by Lester Pearson in 1965, he called Mr. APPEL in Montreal on a Friday evening and said, according to Mr. APPEL's recounting, "You are bored as a chartered accountant, you don't need the dough - come and be my executive assistant," adding: "If you are not here Monday morning, I will have had my answer."
Mr. APPEL and his wife were there by Sunday night, in a city they barely knew, in a milieu that was foreign to them. He worked with Mr. Pepin for two years, served as a business consultant to the National Film Board's Labyrinth project for Expo 67 in Montreal, spent a year as a consultant to Gérard Pelletier in 1970 when he was secretary of state for external affairs in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet, then worked a further two years as a consultant to Mr. Pepin when he was minister of industry and trade. Mr. APPEL retired from the bureaucracy after Mr. Pepin lost his seat in the 1972 election, but the two men then joined forces in Interimco, an export trading house.
In the mid-1970s, the APPELs moved to Toronto, where they both became active (she front and centre, and he in the background) in cultural, medical, political, social and commercial projects. As a venture capitalist, Mr. APPEL backed other high-tech start-ups over the years, including Electroline Equipment, a company that manufactures devices for the cable-television industry, Interprovincial Cablevision (now Laurential Cablevision), ENS Biologicals Inc., Sciemetric Inc., and Hi-G-Tek Inc. By now a serious multimillionaire, he established Canmont Investment Corp. to manage his venture capital and portfolio investments.
In 1998, he began donating close to $200,000 a year to the Bram Appel School-Based Project in North Bay for students from junior kindergarten through Grade 1. All the children were given snacks and lunch, and signed up for cultural and sports activities after school and in the summers. The project, which Mr. APPEL funded for five years, has since become a model for a province-wide program.
Mrs. APPEL was diagnosed with lung cancer in May and died on July 14. Mr. APPEL, who was 92 and suffering from short-term memory problems, consoled himself in the lives of his children and grandchildren. On September 24, he fell and broke his hip. He survived the operation, but he couldn't rally and declined rapidly over the next two weeks.
Abraham (Bram) APPEL was born in Montreal on January 13, 1915. He died in Toronto Western Hospital on October 11, 2007. He was 92. Predeceased by his wife, Bluma, and his four siblings, he is survived by his sons David and Mark, five grandchildren and his extended family.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-01-03 published
JOHNSTON, Kenneth " Speed" Clarence
Peacefully after a courageous battle with cancer Mr. Kenneth (Speed) Clarence JOHNSTON of Blyth in his 73rd year. He is survived by his wife Thelma and by his family Glenda (Dave) NOVAK of Lyons, Illinois, Blaine (Tracy) JOHNSTON of Sherwood Park, Alberta, Dori JOHNSTON and Chris SHALONE, Lee (Albert) KWONG all of Edmonton, Sonya (Jeff) WERNER of Cambridge. Also missed by 10 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. He will be missed by Thelma's family, Wayne (Debbie) McDOUGALL, Bill (Brenda) McDOUGALL all of Blyth, Diane (Ken) ANDERSON of R.R.#1 Londesborough, Shirley (Dan) TAILOR/TAYLOR of R.R.#1 Varna and Kevin (Betty) McDOUGALL of Trenton. Also missed by 10 step-grandchildren and 5 step-great-grandchildren. Dear brother-in-law of Lloyd (Lillian) APPLEBY of R.R.#2 Blyth, Marguerite (John) PECKITT of Nepean, Don (Sharon) APPLEBY of Lucan. Also missed by several nieces and nephews. Predeceased by his parents Clarence and Marjorie (GRASBY) JOHNSTON, sister Iona McLEAN, brothers-in-law Donald McLEAN and Bill APPLEBY, and by step-grand_son Luke ANDERSON. Friends will be received at the Blyth Visitation Centre of the Falconer Funeral Homes, 407 Queen Street, Blyth on Thursday from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. where the funeral service will be held on Friday January 5, 2007 at 2 p.m. Interment Blyth Union Cemetery. In lieu of flowers donations to the Blyth Legion Branch #420 Building Fund, Blyth Fire Department Training Centre, or Blyth Minor Sports would be appreciated as expressions of sympathy. Royal Canadian Legion Branch #420 Blyth service will be held Thursday evening at 6: 45 p.m.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-01-03 published
son may have been target
Police make arrest in woman's death
By Raveena AULAKH and Timothy APPLEBY, Page A8
Toronto -- Jean SPRINGER may have been shot down when she tried to protect her youngest son from a friend who showed up at her front door with a gun, according to a Toronto police source.
Ms. SPRINGER, 60, was killed on New Year's Day by a single bullet that struck her in the face. She was pronounced dead at Sunnybrook hospital, becoming the city's first homicide victim of 2007.
Heavily armed officers arrested 26-year-old Altaf IBRAHIM 12 hours later in his basement apartment in Scarborough, a few minutes drive from the SPRINGER home. He is charged with first-degree murder, a charge that implies the killing was planned.
A police source said last night that the gunman may have been looking for Ms. SPRINGER's youngest son Antoine, also 26, when he arrived at the SPRINGER home in the Malvern neighbourhood about 2: 30 p.m.
"It looks like there was some kind of dispute between the two young men and Ms. SPRINGER got between and got shot," a police source said.
The accused is said to have known Ms. SPRINGER's youngest son, who along with an older brother was in his mother's Snowball Crescent home Monday as she prepared New Year's Day dinner.
"They grew up together, at least from their teen years," said Detective Gary GRINTON of the Toronto homicide squad.
Mr. IBRAHIM lives alone in an apartment on Brimorton Drive. He was arrested about 2 a.m. yesterday without a struggle. Clad in orange prison garb, he appeared briefly in court in Scarborough yesterday and was remanded in custody. Police were still seeking the handgun allegedly used to kill Ms. SPRINGER, known locally as "Auntie Jeannie."
"You have what I believe was a truly innocent woman just going about her business," Det. GRINTON said of Ms. SPRINGER, widely described as an exemplary citizen, devoted parent and regular worshipper at the Malvern Methodist Church. "It's shocking."
Neither Mr. IBRAHIM nor any members of the SPRINGER family have criminal records. And if there was any animosity before Monday's shooting, it had not been manifest in the shape of threats or any physical altercations, Det. GRINTON said.
Nor were any gang affiliations involved, he said. "None whatsoever."
He dismissed a news report that said the gunman yelled "Happy New Year," as he opened fire, but agreed that because Ms. SPRINGER let him into her home, she likely perceived no threat.
Beyond stating that postshooting 911 calls were received from several neighbours, as well as from within the SPRINGER home, detectives would not say what led them to charge Mr. IBRAHIM so quickly.
Yesterday, at the three-unit house where Mr. IBRAHIM has lived since last summer, few neighbours seemed to know much about the basement apartment's tall, solitary occupant, who would sometimes step outside for a cigarette but mostly kept to himself.
"He moved in when the new owner bought the house," said George BOORNE, who lives across the street and saw the 2 a.m. arrest. "But I never saw him around."
At the SPRINGER home yesterday, Friends and neighbours voiced shock and sorrow at the brutal death of a woman described as a popular pillar of the community who often helped organize local events.
"I met her on New Year's Eve at the home of one of our sisters, we had a good time," said Norma McKENZIE, who had known Ms. SPRINGER at the Malvern Methodist Church for 10 years.
Ms. McKENZIE described the family of four as God-fearing, close-knit, regular church-goers. "Antoine was part of my team at Ford company and we worked well together."
Other worshippers concurred in praising Ms. SPRINGER's devotion to family and church.
"She was closely involved with the church," said Sandra LECKY, church secretary. "We know where she is today -- there was no victory here."
Church staff brought in extra chairs yesterday evening as mourners packed in to pay their respects. Those in attendance hugged and consoled one another, occasionally rising in songs.
Reading from a statement prepared by Ms. SPRINGER's family -- most attended the service but did not want to speak to reporters youth pastor Marlon MITCHELL described her as "… quiet, charming, intelligent and very much understated in manner. She had style and flair, but all of it counted for nothing compared to how much she celebrated her relationship with God through Jesus Christ."
Ms. SPRINGER was born in 1946 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. As a student, she won a scholarship to a grammar school for girls and eventually earned a teacher's diploma. She arrived in Canada in the late 1960s, and initially continued teaching primary school. However, she soon switched jobs, becoming an accountant. Self-employed, she stayed in that line of work until her death.
But it was her religious faith that stood out above all else, Friends said yesterday. Indeed, it is that faith that now allows her family to bear no grudges against the man accused of stepping into her home and taking her life.
"Today we mourn her loss, but our faith calls on us to forgive others [as] God has in Christ forgiven us," Mr. MITCHELL read from the family's statement yesterday. "Jean had a forgiving spirit and we are sure that she would want us to forgive whoever has committed this senseless act."

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-06-27 published
Neighbours noticed man's strange mood before killings
By Alex DOBROTA with a report from Timothy APPLEBY, Page A13
Toronto -- Outside his Scarborough house, Alton BECKFORD showed the buoyant face of a loving husband, a man often seen at barbecues and one who installed a basketball net on his driveway for neighbouring children.
But at other times, sources say, he was violent. One neighbour said yesterday that he had beaten his stepdaughter. And a source close to the investigation told The Globe and Mail that he is suspected of having attempted to sexually molest a teenaged girl.
Mr. BECKFORD, 32, is believed to have killed himself after stabbing to death his wife, 47, and his mother-in-law, 78.
The domestic tragedy unfolded Monday night, less than 30 minutes after he drove his family home from his stepdaughter's graduation at a nearby school, where they cheered the girl who had won a history award and made the honour roll.
The girl, 13, escaped the house bleeding from slash wounds, still wearing her graduation dress. She screamed: "Alton killed my mother!" one neighbour recalled.
Born in Jamaica, Mr. BECKFORD settled on quiet Knowles Drive three years ago. He moved in with his common-law partner, a Hong Kong émigré and her two children. The couple bought a red-brick townhouse with a double garage on a $175,000 mortgage.
The woman was overjoyed with her new life, neighbours said. She had escaped an abusive husband in Hong Kong, a neighbour said. And Mr. BECKFORD even helped her find a job at a factory where he worked as a technician.
But that picture started showing cracks last year, according to a friend of the girl.
"Almost all the time she called me on the phone and she started crying and she told me how he hit her with a belt," said Brittney LEE, 14.
Brittney said the girl called police this year to report the abuse. When officers showed up at the house, she changed her story, afraid her mother would suffer if Mr. BECKFORD was arrested, Brittney said.
Police could not confirm yesterday whether officers responded to a domestic call.
His stepson, 17, dropped out of high school and avoided Mr. BECKFORD whenever possible, Brittney said.
Reports of the man's violent side came as a shock to his neighbours.
Some said Mr. BECKFORD was often seen driving his stepdaughter to school. He also attended get-togethers in the neighbourhood.
Most neighbours agree, though, that his mood changed about one month ago, when he was fired from his job. He was seen brooding and complaining of headaches. Restless, he wandered around the neighbourhood, asking for Tylenol and Advil.
Yesterday morning, drips of blood still stained the white wooden railing of a neighbouring veranda, where the girl had collapsed bleeding and screaming for help the night before.
Behind the police tape that cordoned off her house's front lawn, a banner in Chinese characters gleamed. It read: "Congratulations! Wish you fortune! Wish you wealth!"

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-07-13 published
BRESVER, Abe
On Wednesday, July 11th, 2007. Abe BRESVER, devoted son of the late Feiga BRESVER. Dear brother of the late Sandra ANISMAN, the late Bertha APPLEBY, the late Nate BRESVER and the late Betty PELLY, and brother-in-law of Selina BRESVER and Dave ANISMAN. Uncle Abe will be remembered by his many nephews and nieces and their families. "Mr. B." will be missed by his "Metro Cab family", especially Sandy and Susan BROWN. The family wishes to thank Michael ORIS, April KING, Mrs. KING, and Sid SANTOS for their devoted and respectful care. A graveside service will be held at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda section of Bathurst Lawn Memorial Park on Friday, July 13, 2007 at 2: 30 p.m. Evening memorial prayers will be held at the home of David and Bunni BRESVER, 350 Lytton Blvd on Saturday July 14th and Sunday July 15th. Donations to the Alzheimer Society, 416-488-4772 would be appreciated by the family.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-03 published
'True hero' killed in the line of duty
Two men face charges after 22-year veteran is slammed into a tree while attempting to arrest suspected airbag thief
By Timothy APPLEBY and Geoff NIXON with a report by Alan CAIRNS, special to The Globe and Mail, Page A1
Markham, Ontario -- An undercover York Regional Police officer, dragged to his death yesterday by an alleged car thief on a sleepy residential street, is "a true hero" who paid the ultimate price for his "selfless sacrifice," Police Chief Armand LA BARGE said.
A charge of manslaughter has been laid against a 19-year-old Toronto man, with further charges pending. A second suspect in custody also faces an array of criminal charges.
Constable Robert PLUNKETT was a 22-year veteran of York Regional Police and 43-year-old father of three. He died after an abortive 5 a.m. operation when he approached the driver's side of a car to arrest a man suspected of trying to steal airbags - a profitable mini-industry in the auto-theft world.
The suspect threw the Honda into reverse and Constable PLUNKETT was trapped by the open driver's-side door. The vehicle drove over a curb, across a lawn and slammed into a tree, fatally injuring the officer, Chief LA BARGE said.
Backup police then rammed the vehicle and arrested the driver as he attempted to escape. The other suspect, nearby in a second car, was also quickly apprehended.
Rushed to Scarborough Grace Hospital, Constable PLUNKETT died soon afterward - the first York Regional Police officer killed in the line of duty in more than 20 years.
The slain officer once won a bravery reward for rescuing an elderly woman from a frozen lake and was renowned for his work on behalf of the Special Olympics, a forum for disabled athletes.
"Rob and police officers like him are true pillars of the community that we serve, and their selfless sacrifice and their hard work ensures that the communities that we call home are safe places in which to live and to raise a family," Chief LA BARGE said.
Asked if Constable PLUNKETT's approach of the suspect was in line with normal procedure, Chief LA BARGE replied, "Surveillance officers, when they undertake these types of details, formulate a plan as to how they would effect the arrests where arrests need to be made."
As upwards of 30 officers descended on the crime scene early yesterday, residents of Ascot Crescent described the chaos.
Startled awake by the ruckus, one resident described seeing Constable PLUNKETT lying on the street.
"I heard a very loud noise and somebody yelling," said a woman who asked that her name not be published. "He was lying on the ground and they were trying to get him to breathe."
She said she took a blanket outside to an emergency worker in hopes that it would be passed on to Constable PLUNKETT, but it was too dark for her to tell if it was eventually placed upon him.
A few doors away, at a home directly across the street from where he was killed, another homeowner recounted hearing officers yelling, "Breathing! Breathing!"
Police had followed two cars - both Hondas - from an address in Toronto to Ascot Crescent, in the Birchmount Road and Steeles Avenue area. At least one of the vehicles was stolen and police believe it had been taken to a quiet location to remove its airbag.
The driver was trying to do just that when Constable PLUNKETT moved in for the arrest, Chief LA BARGE said.
The death is the first killing of a police officer in York Region since 1984, when two officers died in the line of duty within weeks, and sent shock waves across the force, formed in 1971 and now serving more than 900,000 people.
"It's an organization where we've not lost many officers, but even one is one too many," Deputy Chief Bruce HERRIDGE said.
The theft of airbags and other auto accessories is a long-established business, said Detective Staff Sergeant Scott MILLS, who heads the Ontario Provincial Police auto-theft unit.
"There is a very large grey market for replacement auto components, airbags being one, along with Global Position System, stereos, body components - things that can easily be put into high-end vehicles," he said.
"Body shops buy them. There's a very low profit margin in auto body repair, so if the owner can buy, say, airbags for a Cadillac Escalade for $100 on the grey market, then he doesn't have to go to General Motors and buy them for $400."
As for the thieves, police say they range from drug-hungry addicts needing a fix, to slick, well-organized criminal gangs.
"And some shops buy them up like candy," another police source said.
In this instance, detectives believe the suspects specialized in the theft of airbags, which also get shipped abroad to developing countries.
Chief LA BARGE suggested Constable PLUNKETT had no choice but to act as he did.
"Surveillance officers work in a team environment, but the situations that they encounter can happen so quickly that there is absolutely no alternative but for the surveillance officers to make those arrests," he said.
"And this is the particular situation that we are dealing with here."
Chief LA BARGE indicated that 43 airbags had been stolen in Markham since January of this year - most from Honda and Acura model vehicles - and that this particular investigation had been under way for two or three weeks.
Nadeem JIWA, 19, has been charged with manslaughter, which usually describes an act of unintentional homicide. Baseer YOUSAFZAI, 23, faces charges of breach of bail and possession of stolen property.
Both men are from Toronto and likely face additional charges, police said.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-03 published
Friends mourn a man who was cheerful, selfless
Constable Rob PLUNKETT is York Regional Police's first fatality in the line of duty in more than two decades
By Timothy APPLEBY and Alan CAIRNS and Tim SHUFELT, Page▼ A8
On the chilly February day nine years ago, when 78-year-old Katherine TOPPI's car skidded across a frozen lake and then plunged through the ice close to the retirement home in Markham where she lived, her prospects could scarcely have been more dire.
Ms. TOPPI had suffered a stroke and lost control of her vehicle, which now was submerged in a couple of metres of bone-numbing water.
Fortunately for her, a couple of uniformed guardian angels were on hand.
One was York Regional Police Constable Brent LUCKASAVITCH; the other his partner, Constable Rob PLUNKETT.
Together the policemen carried an inflatable boat out across the ice and paddled it out to the stricken car, the windshield of which Constable PLUNKETT smashed with his baton. They then scooped the shivering Ms. TOPPI to safety.
A cheerful, gregarious father of three and a star athlete who ran triathlons and excelled at half a dozen other strength-testing sports, Constable PLUNKETT won a bravery award for the rescue and would likely have said it was all in a day's work.
But the volunteer work he did, over and above a 22-year police career cut short early yesterday morning, set him apart.
And his particular passion was in working with mentally handicapped athletes.
"He had a tremendous impact; he's been a great inspiration for everyone who knew him. This is a huge loss," said Deborah BRIGHT, president and Chief Executive Officer of Special Olympics Canada. "He was just one of these good people you don't meet very often in your life."
When York Regional Police played host to the Ontario Special Olympics in 2000, Constable PLUNKETT chaired the bidding team, raising close to $1-million for the roughly 800 participants, drawn from almost 100 countries. Five events took centre stage: floor hockey, five- and 10-pin bowling, swimming and powerlifting.
As well, he was for many years instrumental in organizing the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run, since 1987 the favoured charity of Ontario's police.
"Rob was one of our top fundraisers for more than 15 years," Special Olympics Ontario president Glen MacDONELL said.
"He really believed in what the Special Olympics did for people with intellectual disabilities and he was really engaged in the community. It was in his nature to be that way and he was well thought of right around the world. He was recognized locally, provincially, nationally and internationally because he was one of the best."
Why did he do it? It was not because he had any vested interest. None of his three children - two sons aged 16 and 14 and an 18-year-old daughter - bore any of the handicaps shared by the people whose cause he championed.
"He didn't do this for any obvious reasons - he was just a great man, he loved doing things for other people," said Constable Alan RICHARDSON of the Timmins Police Service, the National Torch Run co-ordinator.
"He had no connection with the Special Olympics other than that he was a police officer and that's our charity of choice. He was just a great family man who loved sports. Everybody he touched and talked to and got to know held him close to their hearts."
Constable PLUNKETT spent several years with the York Regional Police tactical squad, one of the more hazardous police duties, before switching to undercover surveillance work.
"As a police officer you'd think that might be a safer job," Constable RICHARDSON said. "But you know, there is no safe job as a police officer."
In Constable PLUNKETT's small hometown of Midhurst, just north of Barrie, residents were reeling yesterday after learning their neighbour and friend was the fallen policeman they had heard about in news reports. One family friend broke into tears.
"He was a really lovely man, with a really strong family," she said, asking not to be named, before running to the PLUNKETT home. Constable PLUNKETT's widow, a school teacher, was "devastated," the woman said.
The PLUNKETT family sat on the front porch of their grey-brick house on what is normally a quiet street. Cars lined the tree-filled front yard as Friends and family gathered to offer support.
A spokesman for the family said they were too distraught to speak about their loss. A friend of the PLUNKETTs' youngest son said he went over to the family's house after hearing the news.
"He's upset, but it hasn't really sunk in," said 14-year-old Brian HUGHES. "No one wants to believe it's true."
By every account, the veteran officer was a well-liked, if private, neighbour.
Roland DEMPSTER, a 30-year community resident, was aware that Constable PLUNKETT was a policeman but only knew him well enough to wave from his yard.
Mr. DEMPSTER shook his head at what he said was a senseless crime.
"For an airbag? Does that make any sense to you?" he said. "It's sad our society's going that way."
The PLUNKETTs' oldest child, Amanda, is preparing to go to university in the fall, said Kay RADMAN, a co-worker at the nearby Sears department store.
"She's a wonderful girl; we just love her," she said of Amanda, who attended Ms. RADMAN's 50th birthday party last weekend.
In yesterday's wilting heat, flags at all city facilities in the City of Vaughan flew at half mast, as they did at Toronto police stations, to honour the slain officer. They will remain that way until Constable PLUNKETT's funeral.
"Our heartfelt sympathies and prayers are with his family," Vaughan Mayor Linda JACKSON said in a statement. "The full meaning of the police motto, 'To serve and protect,' is brought home to all of us today by today's tragic event."

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-24 published
Three stabbings in 24 hours push year's homicides to 54
By Timothy APPLEBY, Page▲▼ A10
Three unrelated fatal stabbings in less than 24 hours have pushed Toronto's homicide tally for 2007 to 54, putting the city on track for an unusually high total by year's end.
In 2005, when an epidemic of gun violence gripped many of the city's low-income neighbourhoods, 70 homicides were recorded, 52 involving firearms.
But as of August 25, 2005, 48 killings had taken place - six fewer than the total so far this year.
The most recent victim was a 22-year-old mother of three who died of head injuries yesterday after she was found beaten, stabbed and unconscious Wednesday morning in an Eglinton Avenue East parking lot across from a Scarborough police station.
Detectives reportedly believe the unidentified woman was killed after her 38-year-old partner found her at the Roycroft motel with another man, who was also allegedly attacked.
The 45-year-old suspect appeared in court yesterday morning charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated assault as well as weapons charges.
The woman's subsequent death likely means a charge of murder is now pending.
At around the same time on Wednesday morning, the homicide squad was called to the parking lot of an East York apartment building near Overlea Boulevard and Thorncliffe Park Drive, where Engin YILMAZ, 34, was found stabbed to death.
Police said Mr. YILMAZ's killing was precipitated by a verbal argument with his roommate that then escalated. Charged with second-degree murder is Hikmet DASDEMIR, 35, who turned himself in a few hours later.
And shortly before midnight on Wednesday night, on the other side of the city, a 20-year-old man was found stabbed to death in a west-end park.
The unidentified victim was discovered in the Kiwanis Trees of Honour East Mall Park, near The East Mall and Burnhamthorpe Road.
He was pronounced dead at Saint Michael's Hospital.
No arrests have been made in that slaying.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-09-08 published
PRICE, Harry
After a long life filled with much love, on Thursday, September 6, 2007 at Kensington Gardens. Harry PRICE, beloved husband of the late Minnie PRICE. Loving father and father-in-law of Sharryn Price KELMAN and Harold KELMAN, Gayle and Gary MITCHELL, Marla PRICE, Cindy Price EISNER and Murray EISNER, and Matthew PRICE and the late Michelle Goodman PRICE. Dear brother and brother-in-law of Rose and Ed ORZY, and the late Joseph, Sam, and Max. Devoted grandfather of Todd BARGMAN, Sari and Philip SHAW, Carrie and Nick MAZZEI, Beth and Zale APPLEBY, Michael SINGER, Mitchell, and Jessica EISNER. Great-grandfather of Sierra, Jakob, Ethan, Casey, and Sydney. At Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel, 2401 Steeles Avenue W., (three lights west of Dufferin) for service on Sunday, September 9th at 11: 30 a.m. Interment Adath Israel Synagogue section of Bathurst Lawn Memorial Park. Shiva 68 Babcombe Drive, Thornhill, daily from 2: 00 p.m. Donations may be made to The Harry Price Memorial Fund, c/o The Benjamin Foundation, 3429 Bathurst Street, M6A 2C3, 416-780-0324 or at www.benjamins.ca.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-09-12 published
Fatal stabbing shakes Toronto schools
Scarborough student slain at lunchtime
By TIMOTHY APPLEBY with reports from Unnati GANDHI, Jennifer LEWINGTON, Karen HOWLETT and Shawn McCARTHY, Page A1
Toronto -- In a lunch-hour confrontation that dispatched fresh shock waves across Toronto's school system, a 16-year-old Scarborough student was stabbed to death yesterday on a walkway leading from his high school.
Homicide detectives were hunting at least one suspect, seen fleeing the crime scene at Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute in a speeding car, and offered little insight into why the youth - identified by CTV News last night as Denesh MURUGIAH - had been killed.
Suspicion, however, immediately fell on a long-simmering rivalry between Tamil factions, whose animosity is believed responsible for a firebombing and a stabbing in the same neighbourhood in April.
What was certain was that the teen's death came just four months after the shooting death of teenager Jordan MANNERS in a high school on the other side of the city. And, moreover, it had the hallmarks of being planned.
"My Friends told me they saw the victim standing there when two guys came up behind him and said, 'Do you want to do this now?' recounted Ajay MANGARA, 18, who lives a few doors from the school, near Lawrence Avenue and Kennedy Road.
"Then they saw the guy screaming on the ground, 'Help me, help me.' "
The teen was stabbed several times in the stomach and showed no vital signs when paramedics responded to the 12: 05 p.m. call. He died soon after in Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
Word on the street is that the killing stemmed from "Tamil reprisals," Mr. MANGARA said, echoing the opinion of a Lawrence Avenue pizza parlour operator that caters to many Winston Churchill pupils.
If so, it is not the first time police attention has been drawn to a Tamil-based gang conflict, loosely spread across half a dozen Scarborough schools.
Students milling around the collegiate in the bright sunshine yesterday seemed to know little about the victim, a new arrival in his second week of school, and some appeared strikingly unaffected.
As television cameras hovered, several urged their Friends, "Don't snitch, don't talk."
Yesterday's killing was Toronto's 57th of 2007 - 11 more than had occurred at the same time last year.
The principal suspect is thought to be a male with brown skin, 17 or 18 years old, about 5 foot 5, wearing black jeans, a black zip-up hoodie and a bandana covering his face.
Also sought is a light blue Honda, probably a mid-1990s Civic, in which the killer or killers are believed to have fled.
Whether any of them also attended Winston Churchill was unknown.
But 41-year-old floor installer Jim NIKOLAKAKOS, an alumnus who has lived close to the walkway for most of his life, said the school has become markedly rougher in recent years and that tensions were often evident.
"There's a lot of rivalry going on in the school - kids from this school, kids from other schools - they get together in little gangs and it's all, 'You said this, you said that,' " he said.
"The whole school has changed; inside there's graffiti all over the place, it's not kept up. There's no respect any more for anything… Things have changed."
Others familiar with the sprawling 1,200-student school disagreed.
Jessica COPELAND, 19, was a student for five years and wept yesterday as she arrived home to learn what had taken place almost on the doorstep of her Flora Drive home.
"I just can't believe something like this would happen at Churchill it was a really good school for me, the teachers were nice," she said.
"There were incidents, yeah, but they were really contained and personally I never saw anybody with any weapons, not in five years. Nothing ever got out of hand like this."
Toronto Police Service Inspector Kathryn MARTIN said much the same.
"I'm very familiar with the neighbourhood, I've spent 13 years working in 41 Division and this is a very good school… so I'm thinking this is an incident unrelated to the school itself."
Winston Churchill, however, is adjacent to a community centre that last year installed closed-circuit cameras because of fights. And in the past, local councillor Michael THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON has asked nearby retailers not to sell knives.
Mr. THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON said of yesterday's homicide that he was "not shocked but saddened."
Gerry CONNELLY, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, denied rumours that the victim had been transferred to Winston Churchill because of behavioural problems.
In fact, she said, the teen was a new student because he and his family had moved into the Lawrence and Kennedy area from Don Mills.
"I can't speak to behavioural issues, but he was not a transfer student," she said.
The fatal stabbing nonetheless reignited the issue of safe schools, which erupted in May after 15-year-old Jordan MANNERS was shot to death at his school in the Keele and Finch area.
As police quizzed witnesses: at nearby 41 Division yesterday, Detective Sergeant Gary GRINTON of the homicide squad alluded to Jordan's death, in which two 17-year-olds have been charged with first-degree murder, and appealed for public help.
"Do the right thing, come forward, man up," he urged the suspect.
Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty commented on the stabbing during a campaign stop in Markham, Ontario, last night. "As Premier, and maybe more importantly just as a dad, I wanted to express my deepest sympathies to the family and Friends of this young man who lost his life today in a senseless tragedy," he said.
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory described the homicide as symptomatic of a larger problem - the Liberal government's alleged failure to crack down on violent crime.
"We simply let this kind of thing go on," Mr. Tory said. "We simply have to deal with this kind of crime and the causes of this kind of crime."

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-09-27 published
ROGERS, Hilda Marie (formerly BARR, WILLIAMS, née PECK)
Peacefully on Tuesday September 25th, 2007, in her 95th year, at Castleview-Wychwood Towers. Hilda, beloved wife of the late Reverend Graham BARR, Reverend Ivor WILLIAMS, and Reverend Allison ROGERS. Loving mother of Doctor Ronald BARR (Marilyn) and Gerald BARR (Nancye APPLEBY.) Fondly remembered by her grandchildren Tristan, Fabien, Emily, Stephen, and Charlotte, as well as her great-grandchildren Phoenix and Hannah. She will be sadly missed by the Williams and the Rogers families. Friends may call at the Trull "North Toronto" Funeral Home and Cremation Centre, 2704 Yonge Street, Toronto, (5 blocks south of Lawrence Ave.) on Saturday from 1: 30 until time of service in the chapel at 2:30 p.m. Cremation to follow. If desired, in memoriam donations may be made to the United Church of Canada.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-03 published
Housekeeper found dead in Mississauga mansion
By Timothy APPLEBY with a report from Unnati GANDHI, Page▲▼ A14
The multimillion-dollar home of a successful Indo-Canadian businessman turned into an investigation scene yesterday after the lifeless body of a housekeeper was found inside, police said.
The 27-year-old woman was discovered inside a mansion on Doulton Place in the Mississauga Road and Dundas Street West area, after one of the homeowners called police Monday evening, Peel police Constable Adam MINNION said last night.
Neighbours said the victim was a domestic maid who was often seen in and around the house, which is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and backs onto the Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
The home was purchased in 1998 for $823,000 by Vasdev (Dave) CHANCHLANI, transferred to daughters Sonia and Tina CHANCHLANI for a nominal $2 and registered in the two women's names in 2004, property records show.
Mr. CHANCHLANI is the Chief Financial Officer of Toronto-based Sigma Global Solutions, while his wife, Jayshree, is a Brampton family physician. The couple also have a son, Neil, who is attending university in Britain.
Dr. CHANCHLANI did not answer calls to her cellphone yesterday evening.
Police released no names or a cause of death, but said they were looking for a suspect who likely knew the victim. They also confirmed she was a housekeeper.
Meanwhile, Toronto's homicide tally for the year rose to 64 early yesterday with the stabbing death of a pregnant 25-year-old North York woman whose common-law husband was arrested at the scene and charged with murder.
Aysan SESEN was stabbed in the abdomen. Her seven-month-old fetus died as a result of the violence, despite an emergency cesarian section in hospital.
However, there is no scope under the Criminal Code for laying murder charges involving an unborn child.
"A being has to be born and take a breath, basically," Detective Sergeant Gary GRINTON of the homicide squad said.
A second woman, aged 44 and believed to be the mother of the accused, was also stabbed and was waiting last night for plastic surgery on a badly injured arm.
Turan COCELLI, 30, who is believed to be the father of Ms. SESEN's baby, faces charges of second-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Police from 31 Division were called at around 1 a.m. to a bungalow on Whitburn Crescent, near Keele Street and Sheppard Avenue West.
Det. Sgt. GRINTON would not say whether the 911 call came from Mr. COCELLI, an unemployed carpenter on compensation. But he confirmed that when police arrived at the home, the accused was there.
Both the accused and the two victims shared the home but there is no record of police having been called there before, Det. Sgt. GRINTON said, adding the baby would have been the couple's first child.
The woman believed to be Mr. COCELLI's mother remained under sedation and had not been interviewed, he added.

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-16 published
Two bodies found in blazing van
Police waiting to question badly burned man who ran to nearby house to summon help
By Timothy APPLEBY and Jessica RAFUSE, Page▲▼ A13
A brick bungalow on a quiet Scarborough street was under the microscope of homicide detectives yesterday as they probed the late-night discovery of two bodies inside a blazing van on a remote, dead-end country road in King Township, charred beyond recognition.
A badly burned man who managed to escape the inferno and stagger to a nearby house for help was in hospital under sedation. Police were still waiting to question him to determine whether he and the other two occupants of the van were victims of a murder, a botched murder-suicide attempt or some type of bizarre accident.
Further thickening the mystery was an unconfirmed report that the Scarborough house to which the van was traced housed a marijuana operation.
No names were released, pending identification of the victims and notification of next of kin.
CTV News reported that the injured man's name is Bao MAC, 46, and that his wife, Jocelyn, and daughter, Ashta, about eight or nine years old, died in the burning van.
Constable Laurie PERKS of York Regional Police would not confirm reports that the dead were the man's spouse and daughter. She did say, however, that no suspects were immediately being sought. "It's weird, a very odd one, this."
By later afternoon, the two bodies were still in the van, protected by a temporary canopy amid a thicket of trees. A source familiar with the investigation said the pair were burned so badly that an accelerant may have been used, and that DNA tests rather than dental records might have to be relied on to confirm their identity and establish how, when and where they perished.
Shortly before midnight Sunday evening, police responded to an emergency call that brought them to an address near the Seventh Concession and the Sixteenth Sideroad, west of Highway 400.
"A fellow had approached the gates of a gated home and buzzed the intercom, requesting the lady to call 911," Constable PERKS said.
"He had come from a van that when we arrived was fully engulfed in flames. The officers tried to extinguish the fire but were unable to. At the end, when the fire department extinguished it, we found the bodies of two people inside, burned beyond recognition."
The vehicle was registered to a home on Barnsley Court in Scarborough, near Warden Avenue and Ellesmere Road, cordoned off by yellow tape yesterday as police detectives examined it.
Property records show that the house was purchased last year for $324,000 by Mui Xui VOONG. But it was unclear whether Mr. VOONG lived in the home or had rented it out.
As police questioned everybody leaving and entering the street, neighbours described a quiet Canadian-Chinese household that was home to a couple and two young daughters. One resident said the man of the house was a self-employed contractor named Kim.
Children's bicycles were propped alongside the home, a swing set was in the yard and patio chairs and a barbecue were perched on a new deck.
Morris CHANCE, whose backyard adjoins the property, voiced dismay that tragedy had struck the peaceful neighbourhood where he has lived for more than 30 years.
"They're just normal, quiet people," he said. "It's shocking news. He was a really nice guy, always smiling, saying 'hi.'"

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APPLEBY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-23 published
Man targeted by gunman was arrested after Creba shooting
Motives for attack unclear, police say
By Timothy APPLEBY, Page▲ A17
He was scooped up in the wave of arrests last year that stemmed from the Jane CREBA murder investigation and convicted of cocaine possession. He was shot dead on a busy street Sunday afternoon after visiting an acquaintance being held in Toronto's Don Jail.
But beyond saying they are sure Eric BOATENG, 21, was targeted and ambushed by a gunman who hurried away on foot, police yesterday conceded that so far they have little idea why Mr. BOATENG was killed.
"There could be a multitude of reasons, it's very early in the investigation," said Detective Dan NIELSEN of the homicide squad.
"What we know is that he attended the Don Jail for a visit, that when he left he was confronted about a block away and that the person who confronted him shot him multiple times."
There is no shortage of theories to pursue.
Unmarried, without children and with no fixed address, Mr. BOATENG was one of 25 people arrested in surveillance-driven police raids that followed the killing on Boxing Day, 2005, of Toronto teenager Jane CREBA, an innocent passerby in what's believed to have been a gangland shootout on Yonge Street.
Six other people were wounded in the gun battle, which became a metaphor for the worst year of gun homicides the city had ever seen.
Mr. BOATENG was not among the seven people charged with murder and manslaughter in the death of the Grade 10 Riverdale Collegiate student. But he was accused of possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and was sentenced in August to the equivalent of 28 months in jail plus a year's probation.
He was originally charged with conspiracy to traffic in firearms but that charge was stayed.
Under the two-for-one practice whereby pre-trial time spent in custody is doubled up, Mr. BOATENG was then released from custody.
He was killed Sunday as he walked to his car after visiting the Don Jail.
Whether he would have testified at the CREBA trial is unclear, as is the role in Sunday's shooting - if any - of his underworld drug Friends. As for the inmate he was visiting, Det. NIELSEN would not identify the man but said he has been questioned and is part of the investigation.
Sunday's audacious attack near the intersection of Broadview Avenue and Gerrard Street East left neighbours shaken and raised Toronto's homicide tally for the year to 70 - one more than the total recorded for all of 2006.
But initial reports that the gunman was one of a group are now being played down.
"There's nothing right now to connect them to the shooting," Det. NIELSEN said.
Police are seeking a suspect described as black, in his 20s, medium build, between 5-foot-8 and 6 feet, wearing a black bomber-style jacket and last seen running south on Hamilton Street, south of Gerrard Street.

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APPLETON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-09-08 published
WHITE/WHYTE, "Jane Jordan" (Jane BELFRY) (née APPLETON)
Peacefully on August 28th at St. Patrick's Home of Ottawa, shortly after her 81st birthday and a spirited battle with cancer. Jane is survived by her beloved husband of 59 years, G. Russell WHITE/WHYTE of Garry J. Armstrong Home of Ottawa, eldest son John R. WHITE/WHYTE of Ottawa, eldest daughter Holly (Beverley) SCHUT and her husband, Ray, of Toronto, and twins Robert G. WHITE/WHYTE and Barbara A. WHITE/WHYTE of Ottawa. Cherished Grandmother of Shannon and Sarah SCHUT, Jane is also survived by her sister Barbara REID of Federal Way (U.S.A.,) and pre-deceased by her siblings Tim APPLETON and Kay CLARKE of Toronto. "Jane Jordan," as she is known in the literary-arts community, grew up in the Lawrence Park area of Toronto and graduated from Havergal College in 1946. Her father, Franklin Fletcher APPLETON of Wm. Collins and Sons, published the works of many famous Canadian authors including "Two Solitudes" by Hugh MacLennan. Jane Jordan's skill and dedication at promoting Canadian writers, poets, artists and musicians in Toronto (circa 1960s) - and Ottawa beginning in 1973 with her signature series "Folk and Poetry" - garnered the attention and support of the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and (circa 1990s) TREE with the annually awarded "Jane Jordan Award." Her published works and contributions were extensive - including several books of poetry culminating in A Signature of Leaves (2004, Penumbra Press). Her grace, keen intellect and deep compassion bestowed a legacy of inspiration and gratitude that is keenly felt with the appellation "Fairy Godmother." A Celebration of her life will be held Saturday September 15th at Hulse, Playfair and McGarry, 315 McLeod Street, Ottawa, commencing with visitations at 1: 30 p.m. Services at 2:30 will be followed by a reception.

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APPLETON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-11-08 published
CRUICKSHANK, Doctor George Herbert
Age 82, of Corunna, Ontario, passed away on Tuesday November 6, 2007 at Bluewater Health, Mitton Site, Sarnia, Ontario. Beloved husband and best friend of Eileen Doris (STRIKE) CRUICKSHANK. Loving father of Pat CRUICKSHANK of Ottawa, Judy MUSGROVE of Windsor, Ontario, Doctor Barbara CRUICKSHANK (Dr. Patrick GULLANE) of Toronto, Joan (Ian) of Bermuda, Georgia (Dr. David) TAILOR/TAYLOR of London, Ontario. Cherished 'Grandpa Doc' of Alanna (Trevor) APPLETON, Ted MUSGROVE, Joanne (Sebastian) GENTIZON and Cameron TAILOR/TAYLOR. Dear brother of Mabel YOUNG and Ella NORTON, both of Sarnia. Predeceased by his parents, George Herbert Sr. and Lillian (WHITE/WHYTE) and wife Barbara (SHANNON) (1976;) siblings James 'Bud' CRUICKSHANK, Ilene MILROY and Marguerite GRAY/GREY. George was a naval veteran of World War 2; graduate of the University of Western Ontario, School of Medicine (1950) and practised Family Medicine in Corunna from 1951 to 1983; Chief of Staff, Sarnia General Hospital (1977-1984); Ontario Provincial Coroner (1966-1995) Occupational Health Physician at Petrosar and C.I.L. and Medical Director, Terra (Canada) from 1984-1990. Honoured in 1995 with a Life Membership, College of Family Physicians of Canada. Life member of the Masonic Moore Lodge 294. Life long member and elder of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Corunna, Ontario. Funeral services will be conducted on Saturday, November 10th at 11: 00 a.m. from St. Andrew's Church, 437 Colborne Street, Corunna; officiated by Reverends Dan ROUSHORNE and Ernest HERRON. Cremation to follow. Interment at family plot, Bear Creek Cemetery, St. Clair Township, Ontario at a later date. Visitation from 3: 00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Friday November 9th at St. Andrew's Church, Corunna. In lieu of flowers, sympathy may be expressed through donations to St. Andrew's Church Memorial Fund, 437 Colborne Street, P.O. Box 1381, Corunna, Ontario N0N 1G0 or the Princess Margaret Fellowship in Surgical Oncology Fund, Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, 610 University Ave., Toronto, Ontario M5G 2M9. Arrangements entrusted to Steadman Brothers Visitation Chapel, Corunna, 519-864-1193. Messages of condolence may be sent to sbrothersfuneral@hotmail.com. George was a man of his faith who lived his life with integrity and generosity. To the end he fought the good fight. He will be greatly missed by his family, Friends and the community.

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APPS o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-01-05 published
KENNEDY, Archie William
Peacefully at Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital on Thursday, January 4th, 2007, Archie William KENNEDY of Ailsa Craig, Ontario in his 90th year. Beloved husband of the late Viola May (EEDY) KENNEDY (2001.) Dear father of Elaine and Don STEBBINS of Hensall, Jean and Allen AMOS, Shirley and Lorne MacGREGOR and Audrey McADAM all of Ailsa Craig. Dearly loved grandfather of Bill and Diane STEBBINS, Kim APPS (Mike), Jeff AMOS (Jody), Cathy TALBOT (Brian), Angela AMOS (Brandon), Amanda AMOS (Adrian), Tim MacGREGOR (Trina), Ian MacGREGOR (Susan), Pam KACZMARCZYK (Kevin) and Tammy GREGORY (Scott) and 15 great-grandchildren. Dear brother of Elaine SANDERSON of London. Predeceased by brothers Ferg, Colin and Dave. Resting at the T. Stephenson and son Funeral Home, Ailsa Craig, where the funeral service will be held on Sunday, January 7th, at 3 p.m. with Rev. Kate BALLAGH- STEEPER officiating. Interment Nairn Cemetery. Visitation 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Saturday. A Masonic Service under the auspices of Craig Lodge #574 will be held on Saturday evening at 6: 30 p.m. Donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario or the charity of choice would be appreciated. A tree will be planted in memory of Mr. Archie KENNEDY.

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APPS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-06 published
BROWN, Hilary Newitt (March 31, 1909-September 28, 2007)
Peacefully in the fullness of her 98 years, Hilary died at her beloved home of Heron Rocks surrounded by loving Friends. Predeceased by her life companion, Harrison BROWN, and by her two sisters, Margaret APPS and Lorna SCOTT, she is survived by her Hornby Island community and by the families of her sisters and of Chris and Felicity WHITTAKER. Felicity is Harrison's daughter. Hilary was born in Scotland in 1909, she trained as an interpreter and was studying at university in Germany during the rise of Nazism. While assisting the resistance, she wrote her first book, Women Must Choose, which urged women to select the social system that fostered their goals. Driven out of Germany, she and Harrison emigrated to Hornby Island, British Columbia. They continued to lecture across North America and to write about world conditions while working for their new community. Always a doer, Hilary fostered every major island institution from the co-op to elder housing. Committed to the preservation of the Gulf Islands, she was named the first Chair of the Islands Trust, which was created to protect their unique environment. She donated her own land to the Heron Rocks Friendship Centre Society, which, inspired by Hilary, is dedicated to fostering environmental and social harmony. Nationally she worked for the Voice of Women and many peace organizations and received several honours for her untiring dedication to these causes.
While her voice and pen are now silent, her contributions live on. Hilary BROWN, Activist, will be remembered for her passionate commitment to peace and social justice.
Contributions in her name may be made to the Heron Rocks Friendship Centre Society, Hornby Island, British Columbia, V0R 1Z0.

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