Premier Dalton McGuinty sat in a Tim Hortons restaurant for an hour the other day and no one noticed him.

But the Liberal premier's bigger problem six months before an election lies in the fact that many of his policies, and particularly those that have formed the main theme of his government, are also going unrecognized.

McGuinty's central theme, not always well accomplished, has been protecting people - from smoking, pit bulls, children's car seats that do not fit and scores of other hazards in life.

His many safeguards include requiring bars and liquor stores to post signs warning pregnant women alcohol can cause birth defects and ordering elementary schools to remove junk foods such as potato chips and pop from vending machines and replace them with healthier snacks.

To put it mildly, his solutions have not always been perfect. He has given more money, but nowhere near enough, to treat autistic children, refused to require adult as well as younger cyclists to wear helmets, and ignored doctors' pleas to ban smoking in cars that are carrying children.

McGuinty also had to be pushed into some. He did not require vehicles to provide seatbelts for all passengers until a single collision killed four people.

When the legislature resumed sitting in March, it might have seemed there was nothing left for McGuinty to protect, but he has still produced a steady stream of new safeguards.

These include fines up to $10,000 and temporary impounding of vehicles to curb street racing and quadrupling the species of rare animals and plants the province will protect to enrich people's lives.

Although the Liberals have never claimed this, no previous premier has brought in as much protection of various sorts for residents. They may not want to promote it fearing they will be accused of interfering and being Big Brother, or they may even be unaware of the fact they have established a record. Political parties often are ill-informed on the past.

But anyone who has watched the legislature the past four decades knows that no other government in that time has produced anywhere near as many programs to protect residents, and earlier governments simply did not make protecting citizens as high a priority.

Some of this protection also is low-profile compared to controversies and anyone seeing the legislature through news media recently would think it has been occupied almost exclusively by concerns that some lottery retailers have cheated ticket buyers.

Premiers usually have had a trademark. Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris was known for welcome tax cuts and then weaker public services and confrontations with those who protested.

New Democrat premier Bob Rae is remembered for piling up huge budget deficits in a recession and Rae Days that forced public servants to take time off without pay.

Liberal David Peterson was known first as a welcome change after 42 years of Conservative governments (but any party ruling that long would have been too much), and for innovations such as pay equity, but later was seen as a playboy yuppie observed mostly in tuxedo at theatre first nights and book launches.

Conservative premier William Davis was seen as a master of moderation, never too far to the right and certainly not to the left, and John Robarts as a stable chairman of the board.

Most premiers also had moments of high drama, such as Davis stopping the Spadina Expressway from slicing through Toronto on the ground cities are for people, not cars, and reversing and funding Catholic education to the end of high school.

McGuinty has had no such highlights and his most dramatic moment was not one he can boast about, when he broke a promise not to increase taxes after the Conservatives left him a massive deficit.

Most people still don't appear to know what McGuinty really stands for and the first question they ask is what he is really like, as if he is from another planet.

But he has a trademark as much as HP Sauce or Maytag's repairman.

People just don't know about it.