By André Bovee-Begun

A Star investigation has accused Toronto Police of “dipping into” a public fund meant to compensate civilian victims of crime. According to the newspaper, over four hundred Ontario police officers and prison guards, including 133 Toronto cops, have received a total of $1.5 million from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board since 2005. Surely officers injured in the course of law-enforcement duties deserve good compensation, but the police are already covered by workplace insurance, contends the Star. Well, yes, but would regular insurance pay out pain-and-suffering claims like ten thousand dollars for losing one’s love of flea markets, gardening, and “collecting carnival glass”?
And a Toronto man currently faces his third secret detention warrant from the federal government in ten years. Mahmoud Jaballah was originally arrested in 1999 under a national security certificate and detained based on secret evidence that successive governments have declined to make public. Jaballah is accused of being a part of a violent group that planned to overthrow the government of Egypt. He has spent six years in jail and was released into strict house-arrest in 2007. The Canadian government has been unable to deport Jaballah because of the strong possibility that he would be tortured in Egypt.
Another member of the so-called Toronto 18 has pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in the foiled 2006 bombing plot. Saad Gaya, a former McMaster student, was duped into joining the conspiracy, which he was told would not hurt anyone, his lawyer said. Gaya was fully aware that the group was making bombs and intended to destroy buildings in downtown Toronto.
The former mayor of Winnipeg is eyeing this city’s top job, once David Miller finishes up with it. Glen Murray, Winnipeg’s mayor from 1998–2004 and now a Toronto resident, joked that he probably knows more than most contenders about leading a big city, though at least one city councillor chided him for comparing Toronto to Winnipeg just a touch too much.
As for Miller, in addition to seeing the details of his severance package published by the Sun (really, those impertinent newspapers!), he lost a major ally in the ‘burbs yesterday when Lindsay Luby, the lone Conservative member of Toronto’s Executive Committee, quit. Luby’s very public departure highlighted tensions between the needs of her Etobicoke constituents and the current municipal government’s perceived focus on downtown.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, it turns out that telling people they won’t get stimulus money unless they elect a Conservative in their riding is maybe not the sharpest career move in politics.