Premier Dalton McGuinty's main claim to fame is bringing in legislation to protect people, but often it has proven to be as much use as a leaky umbrella.

The Liberal premier has brought in more laws that are supposed to protect than any previous premier. This writer has covered the legislature since 1963 and no premier since then has brought in more and previous governments were nowhere near as preoccupied with protecting.

Most of McGuinty's laws to protect have worthwhile aims and are fairly effective, examples including a ban on smoking in enclosed public places, requiring safer car seats for children and forcing schools to remove junk foods from vending machines.

But few days pass without some reminder that legislation the province has to protect is falling short of its aim.

Since 2006 Ontario has had legislation that is supposed to accredit and monitor private career colleges, which train thousands for jobs.

Students in them particularly risk being cheated, because most are young and many are immigrants and less informed on laws than the average resident. More also are using the colleges, because of the economic recession

The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, which is responsible for keeping watch on such schools, warned one supposedly training heating technicians that it was required to register more than two years ago, but when it failed to comply did nothing to shut it down.

The province even paid for some students to train at the school and did nothing while instructors were not paid and creditors lined up at its doors, and now it has closed, leaving students unable to continue their studies.

They also cannot get their money back from a plan the province has set up to compensate students when a school fails, because the province had not registered it.

Ombudsman André Marin called the province's protection in this case "an unmitigated disaster," but it would be risky to bet this will not happen again.

One indication is that the ministry of children and youth services licenses, although this does not seem to provide much protection for anyone, agencies that help Ontarians adopt children abroad.

Would-be parents who are not as rich as Madonna have been paying as much as $40,000 to get a child from one so-called non-profit agency.

This agency has become bankrupt, leaving its owner's expensive home and cars and scores of Ontarians it was supposedly helping, some of whom had given it down payments of $25,000 and been left without either their money or the children.

The ministry has said does not run such agencies, but "assumes they follow the law," which knowing human nature sounds optimistic, and after several weeks has managed to get a dozen children here to join parents.

But a government that licenses organizations to perform such services affecting lives should surely keep a closer watch on how they do

it.

Earlier this year, a company that sold vacation packages went bankrupt and left thousands of travelers stranded because an industry watchdog the province set up had failed to require it to put more money in its working capital fund to pay its bills, as the guidelines require, or cease selling.

The province should hang its head because it has provided an Ontario Building Code that is essential for health and safety, but passes responsibility for enforcing it to municipalities and, when they refuse, recommends those who object take them to court.

Successive governments have been swamped with complaints for nearly a decade that door-to-door peddlers use high pressure and misrepresentation to sell hydro and natural gas contracts and eventually imposed restrictions on them, but rarely lay charges.

More complaints are being received this year than ever — 2,126 in the first quarter and the latest from a mother whose 11-year-old daughter was badgered into signing a contract by a seller who knocked on their door while the mother was in the backyard.

McGuinty has brought in more legislation to protect residents than any previous premier, but a lot of it is not accomplishing the task.