Any contest to pick the nicest guy in the Ontario legislature probably would wind up with Ernie Parsons as the winner.

Parsons has been Liberal MPP for a riding centred on Belleville for the last eight years and is not much known by the general public.

He got in the news briefly three years ago, after Sandy, a 25-year-old aboriginal he had adopted as an infant, died from complications of fetal alcohol syndrome caused by his mother's drinking while pregnant.

Parsons drafted a private member's bill which he called Sandy's Law that required bars, licensed restaurants and stores selling alcohol to post signs warning that drinking while pregnant can be dangerous, and all three parties passed it quickly - a rare unanimity.

The engineer and college instructor and his wife have adopted four other native children and opened their home to more than 40 foster children, all with special challenges of some sort, over a period of 20 years, without making any show of it.

Since a son died, Parsons has driven daily from his home to the legislature and back, a total five hours a day, while most MPPs who live that far away stay in Toronto overnight.

This was a response to another son aged eight asking, "when we go to Heaven, Dad, will you still have to work? I'm kind of hoping you don't, so we can spend a little time together.'

Parsons said this brought back memories of fishing with his sons and the family talked it over and at 60 he has decided not to run again in the October 10 election.

The MPP has spoken up for Liberal policies, but is relatively non-partisan. After his son died, the first person to call him was former Progressive Conservative premier Ernie Eves, whose only son died in a car crash.

Parsons said Eves was "very compassionate and offered to do anything he could do to help." The Liberal backbencher has helped dispel some of the cynicism that exists, often justifiably, about politicians, and most people probably would feel THAT he has contributed more than his share to public life.

Another Liberal who's leaving, Richard Patten, brought excellent credentials, but got little chance to use them. He had been a relief worker in famine in Africa and the Gaza Strip, showing a concern and gaining experience few others in the legislature could match.

Patten had the success in 1987 of breaking a New Democrat grip on an Ottawa riding that had lasted two decades, and he served briefly as a minister under premier David Peterson before the Liberals were defeated in 1990.

He would have hoped to be in cabinet when the Liberals returned to govern under Dalton McGuinty in 2003, but McGuinty is from an Ottawa riding and named Ottawa MPPs Jim Watson, a former mayor, and Madeleine Meilleur, a francophone woman, as ministers.

This has left no room for Patten and he is leaving and looking for a post in which he can "make a worthwhile difference in people's lives."

Patten is remembered also because he had a severe form of cancer and never missed a day in the legislature, while many who work around government take a day off whenever the sun shines.

Shelley Martel, leaving after 20 years as a New Democrat MPP, has had a different, more public career.

She is thought of particularly because as a minister she warned that she had seen the confidential billings of a doctor who had criticized the NDP government and he could be prosecuted, but later said she had lied, presumably because this seemed a lesser offence than misusing confidential information. But this was an aberration. Martel has been among the most informed and articulate MPPs and a tenacious questioner who took a leading role recently in building inadequate services for autistic children into a major election issue.

This is not to suggest that all MPPs are paragons of virtue. But many, including some little known to the public, serve it better than it sometimes thinks, and they will be missed.