TORONTO, 15 October 2006 — A young Canadian of Egyptian origin acted as a mole to help authorities unravel an alleged Al-Qaeda-inspired plot to bomb buildings in downtown Toronto, CBC television said yesterday.

CBC, in a report carried on its website (http:ØØwww.cbc.ca) and on its evening news program, said the young agricultural engineer was now part of a witness protection program.

“He really felt, as a loyal Muslim Canadian, like he owed Canada something,” a former associate told the program. “And it’s not surprising to see that he did that for the cause of Canada.”

CBC said the man, who is in his 20s, had helped police because he wanted to prevent a “civilian calamity.” It said he was the second mole in the alleged plot.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested a group of Canadian Muslims in June and has charged them with a variety of terrorism-related offenses, including plotting to build a truck bomb larger than that used in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 and setting up a terrorist training camp.

Police said the group, which included both adults and teenagers, had acquired three tons of what they believed was ammonium nitrate, as well as other bomb-making equipment. Some of the younger suspects have been granted bail, but others are in jail ahead of what is likely to be a long series of preliminary court hearings followed by a prolonged trial.

There have been no Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks in Canada, although security officials have frequently warned that Canada must not be complacent about the risk of an attack.

Canada declined to join the US-led coalition in Iraq, but Canadian troops are fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan, raising the country’s profile in the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, support for Canada’s ruling Conservatives is falling and the outcome of the next federal election is up in the air, according to a poll published yesterday.

The EKOS opinion poll, published by the Toronto Star and the Montreal newspaper La Presse, showed that 36 percent of voters would back the Conservatives if an election were held now, down from 38.7 percent a month ago.

Support for the opposition Liberals rose to 31.7 percent, from 28.8 percent last month. But the Conservatives, who hold only a minority of seats in the Canadian Parliament, are in a dismal third place in French-speaking Quebec with 17 percent voter support, behind both the Liberals and the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

The Conservatives must do well in Quebec to have a chance of winning a majority government.

“The prime minister looks to be increasingly inspired by President Bush, for whom politics can be boiled down to one simple concept: I’m right and if you aren’t with me, you’re against me,” commentator Vincent Marissal wrote in La Presse.

“This Americanization of our politics clearly does not please Quebecers.” Pollster Frank Graves, quoted by the Toronto Star, said the survey made it impossible to predict the result of the next Canadian election, which is likely within the next year.

“Right now, almost anything is possible: another Conservative or Liberal minority government or even a majority for one or the other,” he said.

The rising support for the Liberals comes despite the fact that the party will not elect a permanent leader until December. The slate of candidates to lead the party is led by Michael Ignatieff, a former Harvard professor who has raised hackles in Canada with his backing for the US-led war in Iraq, and Bob Rae, a former member of the left-wing New Democratic Party and one-time premier of heavily populated Ontario.

The poll showed that most voters favored Rae as party leader. But voters believed that Ignatieff had the best chance of leading the party to victory.

The poll showed that the NDP had the support of 16.2 percent of voters, the Green Party had 6.2 percent and the Bloc Quebecois had 9.9 percent. The Bloc only runs candidates in Quebec. EKOS surveyed 1,211 Canadian voters between Tuesday and Thursday. It considers the poll accurate to within 2.8 percentage points.