Premier Dalton McGuinty promised to have the squeakiest clean government ever, but he seems to be running out of Tide.
The Liberal premier said he would not allow ministers to profit personally from their jobs or big financial donors to influence government and he is having problems on both counts.
In the latest indiscretion, Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar appears to have broken a requirement ministers steer clear of any involvement in their former businesses.
This is to prevent them promoting policies and using inside information that could benefit their businesses and they have to place their assets in supposedly blind trusts run by independent trustees.
The Progressive Conservatives had a tip Takhar was seen often at a company where he still is majority owner and next day photographed him entering it and leaving three hours later.
Takhar and McGuinty claimed he was talking with his wife, who continues to work there, about sending a daughter to university, but others will wonder how often he went there, because the Tories were able to photograph him quickly after being tipped.
They also will ask why the minister and his wife could not discuss their daughter?s education at home, because he has never looked so busy he is unable to have an occasional breakfast with his wife, and why this talk took three hours.
McGuinty and his party are trying to turn around the issue into one of Conservatives invading others? privacy, as the federal Liberals did with some success when a Conservative MP tape-recorded discussions about switching parties.
The provincial Liberals claim the real issue is Conservatives stalking and spying on Liberal ministers and possibly their families and homes, bugging their offices, homes and cars (although the photographing of Takhar is the only incident substantiated) and plunging Ontario politics to a sleazy, Richard Nixon-style, all-time low.
But if the Conservatives had not produced the photographs, the Liberals could have denied the minister visited his business and the allegation would have fizzled out.
Economist Development Minister Joe Cordiano charged $45,000 expenses to his riding association in 2004 on top of his salary and expenses paid by his ministry when he works on its business.
The association paid for clothing, dining in expensive restaurants in Paris, Milan, Tokyo and Toronto, and theatre tickets in London.
Cordiano argued when not on ministry business, he was on political work so the riding association paid expenses, and he took an aide to the London
theatre and they discussed political matters before the show and in the intermission - this guy never takes a minute off.
McGuinty defended this spending as up to the riding association, but many association members may not want and have never been asked to help their MPPs splurge on caviar in Paris, and the public also pays part, because donations to a riding association are tax-deductible.
McGuinty also earlier forced the resignation of a Conservative minister who felt his riding association should keep him in the lifestyle of Conrad Black and he is unable to prove this case is much different.
McGuinty wants the province?s integrity commissioner to rule on both cases, but these appointees invariably find some technicality to bail out government, and residents are better to judge for themselves.
McGuinty also keeps saying he will not allow those who donate big money to his party to influence policy, as the preceding Conservative government did.
But he invited developers who donated $10,000 each to a private dinner to discuss their concerns and was influenced at least to give them a foot in his door, while others were lucky if they got two minutes with their MPPs.
McGuinty also is raking in huge donations from every lobbyist under the sun, part of $6.8 million collected last year, far more than other parties, and they are not giving out of the goodness of their hearts - they expect favors in return.
The Liberals are an improvement on ethics over some previous governments, but they should stop pretending they are Mother Theresa.
