Church of Scientology of Toronto

Toronto, 26 November 2006:
The 17th Annual Drug-Free Marshals (DFM) Christmas Street Festival was held today in cold, wintry conditions on St. Mary Street outside the Church of Scientology of Toronto. Over 500 people attended the festivities which included children's activities such as face painting, a drug awareness poster contest, hot chocoloate and other Christmas goodies, entertainment on the street and, as always, Santa Claus. Many community leaders attended including Mr. Derek Lee, Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Rouge River, Imam Abdul Hai Patel, a past commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and current head of the Council of Imams in Toronto; May Chow, chair of the Community Police Liaison Committee for 52 Division, and Eshwar Doobay and Maria Karasonova of the Ontario Multifaith Council on Spiritual and Religious Care South Central Region.

Derek Lee in a speech from the stage praised the work of the DFM by saying:

"I drove down here this afternoon from Scarborough to pay tribute to our Drug-Free Marshals. I want you to know how important this is to our country. We all know the scourge of drug dependency, the taking of illegal drugs and this is a very serious issue for our youth. And the Drug-Free Marshals have learned a whole lot about this social problem and they are part of the solution because one of the simplest and easy ways to avoid the problem of illegal drug-taking is just to say "No". The other thing that you Drug-Free Marshals do, is that you share your knowledge with your friends at school and within your community, and that's another good thing. So let me congratulate you. I really want to commend you for that, what you do as Drug-Free Marshal, all year long."

Mayor David Miller also sent a warm letter congratulating the DFMs for their youth-driven drug prevention program and the long history of the street festival associated with it. A similar letter was received from Markham City Councillor Khalid Usmann.

Santa Claus was very popular again this year, handing out toys to children. In fact, some parents who brought their kids were so impressed with the theme and message of the festival that they called their friends to tell them to come. As one parent commented, "I just called five people in my building to tell them to come. This is amazing!"