MONTREAL—For anyone who believes or simply hopes against hope that governing parties need not to be ushered off to opposition limbo to clean up their ethical act, the first half of the mandates of Quebec’s Philippe Couillard and Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne offer cautionary tales.

Two years ago this spring, voters in Quebec and Ontario elected rookie Liberal premiers in part because they cast themselves as new brooms on whose watch ethical dust would not be swept under the rug.

The Ontario Liberals under Wynne were re-elected to an unlikely fourth mandate with a majority. In spite of ongoing police investigations into his party Couillard led the Liberals back to government in Quebec after a mere 18-month hiatus in opposition.

No one will argue that voters cast their ballots with their eyes closed: just months before the election Quebec’s anti-corruption unit had raided Couillard’s party headquarters.

But in Quebec, as in Ontario, a plurality of voters chose to overlook the ethical lapses of the Liberals in office, presumably banking that a culture change under a pair of new leaders would be in the offing.

They are still waiting.

Last week, a string of emails obtained by Radio-Canada revealed that former Liberal politician and disgraced party fundraiser Marc-Yvan Côté helped raise money for Sam Hamad, a veteran provincial minister Couillard handpicked for the job of president of the Treasury Board.

The emails showed that Côté and his corporate masters saw Hamad as a facilitator for their interests inside Jean Charest’s government.

Côté had already been banned for life from the federal Liberal party as part of the post-sponsorship scandal clean-up at the time of the correspondence. Last month he was arrested along with former deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau on corruption charges.

On the heels of the Radio-Canada report, it took premier Couillard 48 hours to comment. He announced on the church steps of a funeral Saturday that Hamad was stepping out of cabinet pending an ethics investigation.

Perhaps inspired by the religious venue, Couillard described Hamad’s decision as a “noble gesture.” He compared it to being on sick leave.

This was the first real test of the zero tolerance for potential ethical transgressions the Liberal premier had talked about at the time of his election campaign, and was a performance unworthy of a passing grade.

By comparison to Quebec, Ontario has been spared the sight of past or present elected officials being put under arrest ahead of a corruption trial. But that is not for being over-scrupulous with the spirit of the code of ethics imposed upon the province’s public office-holders and with the principle that they should strive to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

In Quebec, the commission that reported on the collusion and corruption issue last year fingered the fundraising quotas imposed on the members of Charest’s cabinet as a powerful incentive for collusive behavior.

In Ontario, Wynne has maintained such a system in place. Until recently, her party defended the practice of selling access to top ministers in return for generous contributions to the party coffers as part of the democratic process.

To the surprise of no one who has followed events in Quebec, the construction and the financial sectors are among the top donors to Ontario’s political parties.

The auto insurance lobby, for instance, donates generously not only to the parties themselves but also to the campaigns of leadership contenders such as Wynne. Ontario, as it happens, boasts the highest car insurance rates in the country and — in contrast with four of its sister provinces — has no public auto insurance regime.

Because it is home to so many corporations and unions, Ontario has always been a fundraising sweet spot and not just for hometown politicians. It is not rare for premiers or party leaders from less wealthy provinces to harvest money in Toronto. Ontario is also where smaller provinces often come to contract private-sector expertise for their larger projects.

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When the federal parties stopped accepting corporate and union donations a decade ago, one might have expected that would set an example other jurisdictions would feel bound to follow.

But instead the federal withdrawal from this fundraising field made for richer pickings for provincial parties such as Ontario’s and apparently only increased their addiction to big money.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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