This is something I have been thinking about quite a bit for the past few weeks. You see, about 2 or 3 weeks back, friend Bert and I spotted a strange looking package next to a garbage bin on Bay Street, not far from the Stock Exchange. Bert took off for the train station, not wanting to think about what might happen to me while I scoped around and looked for a cop to flag down. I found a cop, told him what I'd seen, and he looked into it. It was nothing, but I did my civic duty.

As I continued to walk to the train station that day, I began to notice things I might normally have overlooked. Who's backpack is that? Oh, it belongs to the kids messing around on skateboards. Fair enough. Why is there a pair of shoes in the middle of the sidewalk? Hmm, how odd.

Then when I got to Union Station and was heading down into the bowels, I noticed that the local homeless guy had abandoned his post - probably to take a leak or go to Tim Hortons - but left his plastic shopping bags in a heap by the stairs. That's when it occured to me that cities with lax vagrancy laws are putting themselves at unnecessary risk. Think about it: If I were a terrorist and wanted to hit City Hall or Union Station, wouldn't I at least consider the option of rolling my C-4 into a dirty sleeping bag or backpack? The police in this city have been discouraged from shooing vagrants away, thereby allowing them to loiter outside banks, the TSX, train and subway stations, the Eaton Centre - all with their mounds of smelly crap that they often leave unattended while they head to the loo or to Tim's.

The simplest of "broken windows" policies - removing the street people and discouraging them from taking up residence in high traffic areas - could go a long way toward reducing the number of suspicious package calls that police need to attend. Which frees them up to tend to other calls, and dedicate more time and energy to those suspicious packages that are not left by the guy who sits next to Osgoode Hall begging for change.

Sure, we'll have the lefties moaning about how inhumane it is to force people off the streets (they seem to think it's far more humane to leave them outside in -40 and +40 weather), but really the homeless would be better off. Since the Harper election, the progressive liberals among us have been wailing about more affordable housing, and the promised funding for the redevelopment of Regent Park. Let me point something out: It has been more than a year since the Regent Park people have been relocated to empty apartments across the city, and there's still space to spare. Do they want affordable housing for the homeless, or do they want it as a union make-work project? I don't want to stray too far off topic, but I do want to nip the whole we-can't-force-them-where-will-we-put-them thing in the bud before I get the inevitable nasty emails calling me heartless. Remember, heartless is leaving someone to die in the street from heat or cold, just because you feel they have the right to do it. And heartless is a crazy Muslim with a shaggy beard who could easily pass for homeless blowing himself up in front of City Hall where all the tour buses (often full of kids) park.