"We're running on our record," he tells Ontario voters in the first gentle wave of the provincial Liberals' campaign to win re-election on Oct. 10.

McGuinty may regret following that angle, given the nasty stain that the current scandal over questionable handouts from the Citizenship and Immigration Ministry threatens to leave on his government's record.

Yes, minister Michael Colle walked the cabinet plank over the troubling ease with which his ministry had blithely dished out taxpayers' money to cultural groups without apparently asking for so much as an application form. -- But will that be enough?

In a damning report last week, Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter found that many of the $32 million in questionable grants had been decided on the basis of mere conversations and that some of the agencies that received money had not even asked for it.

The most glaring example is the Ontario Cricket Association, which asked for $150,000 and got $1 million -- and has now put aside $500,000 in a GIC account. Source...