Once upon a time, there was a Conservative government that used public money to create campaign-style ads – ads tilted toward the governing political party, but paid for by taxpayers. Anyone could see this was anti-democratic and ethically problematic, but it wasn't illegal. The Liberal opposition campaigned on a pledge to pass a law outlawing the practice. The Liberals won the election, and fulfilled their promise.

And now, a decade later, they are trying to un-fulfill it, by gutting their own law.

This is not a story about the current Conservative federal government in Ottawa – the people behind the umpteenth iteration of those "Economic Action Plan" ads popping up during the Stanley Cup playoffs, and many other places besides. Our story takes place in Ontario, where the Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne aims to erase one very good piece of work from her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty.

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That would leave Ontario Liberals free to stick their hands deep into the public cookie jar, allowing them to match the long-standing excesses of the federal Conservatives dollar for dollar, and hyperbole for hyperbole. It's a plan to level the playing field, by lowering it.

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mike Harris's Ontario Progressive Conservative government regularly used the provincial government's dime to run ads touting its own policies. Sometimes Mr. Harris even appeared in those ads, pitching his party's health-care ideas, or helpfully explaining how making government smaller would be "less taxing for all of us."

These commercials would have been kosher if they'd been produced and paid for by the PC party, and identified as such. That's what a political ad is. But the party in power was taking advantage of its control of the purse to send a privileged message to voters, while using taxpayers' money to pay for it.

The Liberals rightly campaigned against this abuse, and in 2004, newly in government, they passed the Government Advertising Act. It was groundbreaking. It places extensive restrictions on government ads. They can be informational, but they are not supposed to be promotional or partisan. Most importantly, the law gives the province's auditor-general the power to enforce those principles. An independent officer of parliament, current Auditor Bonnie Lysyk has broad discretion to reject any government advertising she considers partisan. She is the final judge of which ads can run, and which cannot.

Over the past decade, during which time the government of Ontario spent nearly half a billion dollars on advertising, the auditor sometimes ordered the government to make changes, such as toning down the use of Liberal red in commercials. On at least one occasion, she refused to allow the government to run ads backing its own policies during an election campaign.

In other words, the law worked exactly as intended. Which is why the Liberals now want to change it.

Ironically, this comes as the federal Liberals rightly inveigh against the federal Conservatives' ongoing use of public dollars to run "informational" ads that look and feel like party campaign ads. The situation is that of Ontario more than a decade ago. The federal Liberals even have a private member's bill that, if passed (it won't be, at least not before the election), would impose something like Ontario's restrictions on federal advertising.

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Further irony: The sponsor of the federal bill is Liberal MP David McGuinty, brother of former premier Dalton, the man who brought in the Ontario rules that his successors are now trying to undo.

Further, further irony: The changes to Ontario's advertising rules are buried in an omnibus budget bill, a favourite federal Tory tactic. There is likely to be little time for discussion or debate on these measures; again, that's the intent. Could Ontario's Liberals be trying any harder to imitate the federal Conservatives?

The Auditor, Ms. Lysyk, has gone public with her concerns about the proposed evisceration of the law. She will no longer have discretion to reject ads. So long as an ad doesn't feature a sitting member of the provincial parliament, the logo of the Liberal Party or a significant use of Liberal red, she'll have no choice but to sign off. She'll be turned into a rubber stamp. Say goodnight, oversight.

All of this comes as the province prepares to remove provincial transmission utility Hydro One from the purview of independent watchdogs, from the Auditor-General to the Ombudsman to the Integrity Commissioner. Why? Hydro One could soon be partially privatized, but it will likely be years before that process is complete. And even then, the provincial government will remain as the controlling shareholder, holding a golden share that will prevent anyone else from taking over. Removing what remains a public entity from public oversight makes no sense. Or at least it makes no sense, unless you happen to be the party in power.