Chris Stockwell, the embattled Ontario Environment Minister, is a political scrapper. But the growing ethical storm over his misuse of tax dollars to pay for his European trip and his inability to come clean with the facts is a knock-out punch. Mr. Stockwell should throw in the towel and resign gracefully.

Mr. Stockwell is hardly a stranger to billing-related controversy. Last year, he and his staff were forced to pay back several thousand dollars in bar and restaurant bills they had wrongly billed to taxpayers. Today, he sits in the hot seat for billing between $5,000 and $10,000 in travel-related expenses to Ontario Power Generation (OPG) during a trip to Rome and Paris in 2002. OPG was the Crown agency under Mr. Stockwell's control when he was the province's Energy Minister.

The minister took his wife and children on the same trip that doubled as a vacation, but he originally stated he "personally" paid for their expenses - a statement we know to be untrue. In fact, the European vacation costs were paid in part with money donated to his riding association.

Mr. Stockwell insists he has done nothing wrong and says he did what he did only to be with his family. Yet there is no doubt he misled the public about who paid for what, and has not been forthcoming with the truth. His story has taken on a Clinton-like quality.

It is wrong that some of the minister's bills were paid by OPG. Imagine the public outcry if it was reported that the travel expenses of Industry Minister Allan Rock were paid by the Business Development Bank of Canada - the Crown Corporation he oversees. Because OPG is not subject to the freedom-of-information law there is growing speculation Mr. Stockwell funnelled his expenses through the company he was responsible for in order to avoid any public scrutiny of his lavish Euro-spending.

This affair is not about preventing politicians from spending time with family members. Nor is it about mandating how riding associations spend party funds. It is the duty of party officials to police these matters themselves or suffer the public relations consequences that follows when money is used for junkets rather than polling, advertising and routine party expenses.

Mr. Stockwell has said he will quit if the provincial integrity commissioner finds he was wrong to allow OPG to pay for his expenses. But taxpayers do not require a third party to tell them when a bad fish stinks. Moreover, this type of reckless spending and ridiculous double-speak is what common sense Tories once stood against.

Mr. Stockwell's cabinet colleagues cannot be pleased that he is sullying their reputation along with his own. "If you think I'm the only person that does that, I'm not," he said defiantly. "It happens all the time." By telling voters the entire cabinet is guilty of spending lavishly on holidays, he risks testing the wrath of taxpayers who want politicians to safeguard their tax dollars, not squander them.

Say what you want about the Harris-Eves government years, but there have been few serious ethical scandals of serious consequence. Yet here Mr. Stockwell has made a serious mistake in judgement and he should resign for the good of the government, his party, and his cabinet colleagues.

If he refuses Premier Ernie Eves should demand his resignation. The alternative is for the government to be seen thumbing its nose at Ontario's taxpayers.