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TORONTO — Quoting the fictional LAPD detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch of the writer Michael Connelly, Hank Idsinga said, “Everybody counts.”

Idsinga is the Toronto police homicide detective-sergeant in charge of the Bruce McArthur investigation, the alleged serial killer who already faces five counts of first-degree murder and may yet face more, as forensic experts continue to sift through the large flower pots that appear to have been McArthur’s disposal site of choice.

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Idsinga was responding to the suggestion, made recently by some gay activists and editorial writers, that police only got serious about the disappearances of missing gay men when a white one, Andrew Kinsman, hit their radar.

“Not true,” Idsinga said in his soft voice in an interview Wednesday.

Photo by Craig Robertson/Postmedia

“You know, we actually did a bigger, longer investigation in 2013 when we were dealing with Southeast Asian guys.”

That was the first Toronto police special investigation, Project Houston, which began in November of 2012 into the disappearance of Skanda Navaratnam, who was last seen in Toronto’s gay village on Sept. 6, 2010.