VANCOUVER - John Les seemed genuinely surprised when he learned a special prosecutor was investigating allegations he and other officials may have profited from land transactions while he was mayor of Chilliwack, B.C., in the 1990s.
He promptly stepped down as the province's solicitor general, saying he did nothing wrong and expects to be cleared.
But in the fickle world of public perception, the damage may be done.
Regardless of the outcome of Les' current troubles, the scandal may reinforce perceptions that politicians inhabit an ethical grey zone.
"The core question is really unethical and illegal, the relationship between them,'' says Allan Tupper, a University of British Columbia political scientist. "That's the heart of the matter and it's sure not a new theme.''
British Columbians have become almost used to seeing prominent politicians, including two recent premiers, accused of wrongdoing.
Glen Clark resigned as NDP premier in 1997 but was acquitted of breach of trust over allegations he greased the skids for a casino licence application in exchange for renovations on his Vancouver home.
Social Credit premier Bill Vander Zalm stepped down in 1991 after the province's first conflict-of-interest commissioner, Ted Hughes, concluded he'd used his position to help sell his money-losing Fantasy Gardens tourist attraction to Taiwanese billionaire Tan Yu.
A key piece of evidence was a letter written by his wife Lillian suggesting Vander Zalm would help Tan Yu set up a bank in the province.
"The premier's problem stems not just from his inability to draw a line between his private and public life but in his apparently sincere belief that no conflict existed so long as the public wasn't aware of what was going on,'' Hughes, a former judge whom Vander Zalm had appointed a year earlier, wrote scathingly.
Yet Vander Zalm was also acquitted of criminal breach-of-trust charges the following year.
Tupper says there's no evidence B.C. politicians are more scandal-prone than their colleagues elsewhere.
The Gomery commission into the federal Liberal sponsorship scandal dredged up stereotypes of corruption in Quebec's political culture, leading to outraged claims the province was being "tarred with a very old brush.''
Public suspicion of mutual back-scratching has led to the proliferation of conflict rules and watchdogs both federally and provincially in the last 30 years.
Tupper says until the 1960s the system relied on criminal law to deal with things such as influence-peddling but calls for reform after each scandal led to creation of a complex network of rules covering conflicts of interest, asset disclosure, lobbying and so on.
"The legal framework goes far beyond the Criminal Code provisions,'' Tupper says.
There are federal conflict rules, provincial conflict commissioners, public inquiries and ultimately, the ballot box.
But some observers question whether these strictures change attitudes among politicians.
A 2005 article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science suggested the rules have not helped.
"Regulation will assist those seeking assistance in managing routine ethical requirements, but it will not reduce episodes of ethical theatre,'' authors Michael Atkinson and Gerald Biering wrote.
Politicians and voters are "worlds apart'' on what constitutes ethical behaviour, the two politicial scientists found.
Their study analyzed results of a survey given to a group of citizens and to federal MPs.
Among other things, it asked them to rate various corruption scenarios such as the prime minister appointing a party loyalist to head the CBC or an MP accepting a bottle of wine from a grateful constituent.
In almost all cases, ordinary citizens rated these things higher on the corruption scale than MPs did.
"It's interesting because the research suggests the gap really is between politicians and citizens in terms of expectations, standards and understanding of what politics is,'' says Tupper.
Interestingly, the MPs' ratings cut across party lines, suggesting that while the Opposition will use corruption allegations to hammer the government, its attitude about the way politics works isn't much different.
All this has created a debate between those who think the answer is still stricter rules and those who favour turfing out the ruling party at regular intervals.
If you want the an example that rules don't solve the problem, some say, just look south of the border.
U.S. state and federal governments have vastly more complex regulations governing politicians' conduct but Tupper says there's no evidence they've improved public trust in politicians.
What's evolved there, he says, is a "politics of loopholes'' that allows politicians to operate in America's more money-driven system.
It's not clear what impact rules have had, says Prof. Shannon Stimson, co-director of the Travers Program on Ethics and Accountability at the University of California, Berkeley.
That leaves people frustrated, feeling politics operates in another world with separate rules, she says.
"They are there by the grace of the vote and how do we censure them? Generally we pass judgment on them through election.''
