This is a critical time for governments across Canada. From Ottawa to Queen's Park, ethics - or the lack of - are on everyone's minds, and taxpayers are boiling mad. First, the Auditor General's report revealed how $100 million of public money was funnelled to friends of the Liberal party. Then it came out that Ontario Conservatives with close ties to the Harris government pocketed close to $6 million in consulting contracts. Now it is learned that Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has ties to a company under investigation by the RCMP and the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) for its disclosure practices, financial statements and trading of its shares.

The people of Ontario hoped the McGuinty government was different. They voted for change, and for a time it seemed they were getting it. McGuinty promised to make government more accountable and more responsive to the electorate. In his first months in office, much to the Tories' chagrin, he removed the exemption from Freedom of Information requests for Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One. He has called an inquiry into the shooting of native protestor Dudley George at Ipperwash, a move the Harris government staunchly resisted. So perhaps it is even more surprising that now, facing the first ethical test of his own Cabinet, he has failed so miserably.

McGuinty claims that Minister Sorbara does not have to resign because "he is not the subject of an investigation." Technically, that's true. The subject of the investigation is Royal Group Technologies - a company of which Sorbara was a director for close to ten years, and a member of its audit committee. But hiding behind the corporate veil won't wash with voters. Throughout the business world, board members are held accountable for their companies' actions. And McGuinty's second claim, that he has "resolved" the problem by transferring oversight of the OSC from Sorbara to Gerry Phillips, chair of Management Board, is equally ineffectual. Legally, the finance minister may no longer be in a conflict of interest position. But morally, he remains in the wrong.

That's because the real issues here are arrogance and lack of judgment. Lack of judgment, because Sorbara failed to declare the investigation to his boss when he learned of it in December. In doing so he knowingly put the credibility of the provincial government in jeopardy. Arrogance, in assuming that despite the damage this would do to the government, Sorbara was just too valuable an ally to let go. As a key defender of McGuinty's leadership and mastermind of the Liberals' election victory, the Minister smugly assumed the Premier would put personal loyalty ahead of public interest.

But Sorbara is misjudging the mood of the electorate. Taxpayers are sick of politicians who preach ethics and accountability and practice the opposite. Sorbara refuses to resign, in part, because it's budget time in Ontario and "this issue does not impinge at all on my abilities to discharge those responsibilities." But do taxpayers really want their budget put together by a minister associated with a company under criminal investigation, and who thinks he's above the people he's elected to serve

In the current circumstances, Sorbara should do the honorable thing - and the Premier should demand it. If this government is to practice what it preaches, the Minister must resign.