Wednesday, April 25, 2007

(Toronto)- In the past month, Ontario's Liberal government has gone from smooth sailing to stormy waters as it was beset by successive scandals that some observers say have tarnished the party's once squeaky-clean image.

Less than five months from a provincial election campaign, pundits now say the Liberals' once robust chances of re-election could be in jeopardy.

"There's the beginnings of something going on," said John Wright, senior vice-president of polling firm Ipsos Reid. "There's a series of things now that weren't present one month ago. When you get a cluster of issues and they seem to be around money and integrity, it creates a smell."

For the Liberals, Mr. Wright says simply: "It's not good.

"It's late in the game. We're in the fourth quarter and all of a sudden we're starting to get a clustering of these events."

Yesterday, opposition parties continued to hammer the government on a spending program that doled out $32 million in unpublicized, apparently unconditional grants.

The unnamed program, which had neither a formal application process nor any selection criteria, resulted in grants to apparently Liberal-friendly organizations, according to opposition MPPs.

"You are running a political slush fund that would make Chuck Guite blush," Conservative MPP Tim Hudak charged, referring to the bureaucrat who oversaw the federal government's scandal-plagued sponsorship program.

The provincial grants include $200,000 to an Iranian-Canadian organization that registered only three weeks before receiving the windfall in March 2006.

The board's seven members at the time -- who include a Liberal riding association president, a Liberal candidate in the upcoming election and a long-time friend of Finance Minister Greg Sorbara -- are all Liberal donors, according to documents.

"This is clearly not good for the Liberals, whether there's anything to it or not," said Wilfrid Laurier University political science professor David Docherty.

"You never want to go into an election with questions of one's moral character."

Mr. Docherty likens the current spending scandal, dubbed "Colle-gate" in reference to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Mike Colle, who was in charge of the funding, to the "Patti Starr Affair." That controversy dogged the Peterson Liberal government in the late 1980s after it was revealed a charitable foundation headed by Ms. Starr had made a number of improper political donations to prominent Liberals.

Premier Dalton McGuinty insisted yesterday that grants given out through the citizenship fund were published online.

"So don't tell me that there's no transparency associated with this," he said.

Only one year's worth of grants are published online and are extremely difficult to find on the ministry website.

Mr. McGuinty has also pointed out two-thirds of last year's funding, or $15 million, went to the United Jewish Appeal Federation, which represents many constituents likely to favour Conservative leader John Tory's private school tax credit in the upcoming election.

The government's problems began March 23, the day after the release of its election-year budget that contained many measures aimed at eliminating poverty.

Instead of basking in the positive glow that might have followed its release, attention quickly shifted to the sudden resignation of Ontario Lottery and Gaming boss Duncan Brown, who resigned ahead of a damning report by the provincial ombudsman.

That report, which detailed widespread fraud and an unusually high number of wins among lottery "insiders" became virtually the exclusive focus of opposition Conservatives until last week, when "Lotto-gate" was supplanted by "Colle-gate."

Pollster Greg Lyle says the successive scandals have knocked the Liberals off their game plan. But he doubts they will prove the "nail in the coffin" for Liberal electoral fortunes.

"I don't think that the average person is spending all that much time talking about this," he said.

Others are unsure.

"I actually think the Tories have got some traction on some of these things," said Mr. Wright.