I was puzzled by a comment in a Toronto newspaper recently. “I don’t know many Albertans,” a columnist wrote.

See, this is why nobody likes Trawna. We say things like this.

I know many Albertans — they are easy to know, being friendly types — and had a argument with one of them recently. She was saying how Edmonton cops recently conspired to entrap a journalist for daring to criticize them, and I told her a story, unreported, about how Edmonton cops refused to investigate a gay-bashing incident that was actually filmed on closed-circuit TV.

She told me a Toronto story, and suddenly we were fighting over which city had the worst cops.

I won. I’m not boasting, just stating a fact. I had the Toronto police union negotiating for higher wages by demonstrating on the street armed with actual guns. If I had been downtown that day, I would have been terrified. I would not have done the sensible thing — lie face down keeping my hands in view — because I plan to die standing. It’s a pride thing. But I would have handed over my cash.

As it turned out, there’s no need to hand over cash. Toronto just gave it to them. (I don’t blame Toronto’s fine mayor, David Miller. After two terms of Mel Lastman, Mr. Miller sometimes gives me the sensation I’ve escaped from Colditz.) Because Torontonians were too scared to write letters to the editor or the police board, the police got $60-million extra over three years, although the city won on certain crucial details. More than half of Toronto’s cops earn more than $75,000 a year. They’re the most highly paid in Canada.

I don’t care. Money doesn’t interest me as much as “the principle of the thing,” a phrase I admit I use mainly to irritate the right wing. Money isn’t a principle, I tell them. Their blood pressure soars.

I laughed when my new bloated property-tax assessment arrived. If my house were worth that much, I would have sold the place and moved to Barcelona last night. But I’ll pay the bills because I’m a socialist and want the city’s working police stiffs to be unionized and well paid.

But here’s the deal. I never want to hear a Torontonian imploding over his property taxes again. If you’re too cowardly to complain about police daylight robbery and you still think “Toronto’s cops are tops,” pay your taxes.

Next Thursday, Toronto cops, financed by some mysterious organization, will ask the civilian police board for armed helicopters. They tried it once before, but enraged citizens awakened in the night like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now (“Whup. Whup. Whup. I’m back in Saigon”) told the city to stop or they would buy rocket launchers.

The police will present a polished, expensive plan for corporations and individuals to donate cash for EC120B copters, made by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.

They are hugely popular in the United States, although four have crashed in the past five years, most recently killing two cops in Sacramento. This week, the “whirly-birds,” as men call them, were grounded by Baltimore officials troubled by a preliminary investigation suggesting that the internal turbine blades disintegrated in flight.

The police allies call themselves RASAR or Regional Air Support & Rescue. They say their purpose is rescuing missing children and wandering Alzheimer’s patients. How odd then that the website’s list of news stories to justify the project is all about black people being shot.

Missing children, if found, are found via rapid alerts, smart cops, interviews, endless detail work and ground searches aided by citizens. But I concede that Alzheimer’s patients wearing giant horizontal hats that read, “I have Alzheimer’s. Please call my family,” would indeed benefit from flying police.

Aside from the fact that the city already has access to helicopters from York Region next door, we need police on the ground where most crime occurs. If a cop car chased your drunken teenager and his cheering passengers at 3 a.m. (yeah, I’ve been that passenger) into a telephone pole, think how much worse it’s going to be when the car is shot at from the air.

If Rosedale residents think they own their own airspace at 4 a.m., they’re wrong. Get active, people. Check out RASAR and note that the donations for creating Urban Sleep-Deprivation Central are tax-deductible.

You’re already paying for its 30-million-candlepower rotating spotlight, human heat sensors so sensitive they can diagnose my flu, infrared 32X zoom cameras that can photograph every face in the city and the fact that there is nothing you can do outdoors now without fear of blackmail. (Elected officials take bribes in parking garages for a reason.) Anyone in Rosedale have a mistress? Ever park your car outside her house? Infrared, guys. They don’t need spotlights. Send your donations to RASAR now.

Understated extortion is just one problem with corporations and rich people buying private police protection. The other problem is what use bad cops make of the high-tech photos. Even good cops would sense this. Corruption happens in every institution. Police are just civil servants with guns.

Furthermore, the list of corporations that have donated money to this dreadful scheme include banks, drugstores, giant American chains and law firms that already keep records on your money, your prescriptions, your will and your marriage.

The right photos and videotapes could make a corrupt cop a millionaire, and the police chief cutting his or her pension isn’t scary by comparison.

Tell the mayor what you think. Go to Stop The Choppers for information. Show up at the police board meeting. Activism killed the Royal Ontario Museum’s 43-storey finger to the city. Call your councillor. Promise to boycott corporations that donate to RASAR.

Even depressed Americans are showing their courage. Let’s see some here. Let Edmonton win this time.