Next Thursday, the Lieutenant Governor will deliver the Speech from the Throne outlining the Harris government's vision as it marches toward the 2003 election. Recently, the Premier hinted at one of major themes to be included: local accountability.

It's no secret that Queen's Park is exhausted with municipalities, school boards, universities and hospitals and their endless Oliver Twist-like cries for more money. All together now, "please sir, can I have some more " To be fair, part of this renewed focus on making Ontario's "public sector partners" account for their spending is to find ways not to give them money: the cupboard is almost bare.

Let's be frank, things have on autopilot since 1995. Most assumptions and forecasts were based on never-ending tax revenues from a booming economy. Now that economic growth has slowed, the government is squeezed and perhaps unable to fully deliver on promised tax cuts along with their campaign promises for increases to health and education funding.

But the province's cash crunch is not the only reason for this vigour to place local agencies under the microscope. The other reason is one of financial accountability.

Last November, the Auditor General noted that over 50%, or $30 billion, of annual government expenditures are funneled through arms-length or private agencies. But these agencies do not fall under the purview of the AG's office. So, Ontario taxpayers have no assurance that they are receiving value for the 50% of their tax dollars disbursed through these agencies.

And when it comes to handing money over to hospital boards, the doors are slammed shut on open government. While we can submit Freedom of Information requests to the provincial government, hospitals are technically defined as private corporations and as such, are exempt from Freedom of Information legislation.

So it appears that the Harris government is poised to resurrect measures first proposed in the Public Sector Accountability Act a few years back - an Act that was never implemented.

At the municipal level, the province is already looking at services such as water and will compare the quality of different cities' drinking water and what it costs each city to treat and distribute water. Other services to be measured include sewage, garbage collection, fire, policing, and the costs of government administration. Indeed, cities must submit these measures to the province by month's end.

Turning to the post-secondary sector, it would not be surprising to see comparisons of institutions on their ratio of administration to classroom costs. Or a ranking of their success in placement of graduates and average starting salaries.

Finally, back to hospital boards. Here is where the proverbial "fecal matter" could really hit the fan. As a former hospital board member myself, I was always the agitator for more accountability and transparency.

Now hospital boards across the province could be forced to disclose full and proper minutes of all Board and related committee meetings as well a complete reporting of hospital debt structures, procurement strategies that are skewed with tied-giving/donation activities along with internal audits of hospital cleanliness, not to mention summary reports of patient grievances and lawsuits pending against hospitals.

In science, the process of looking at the total outcomes of effort as opposed to a simple catalogue of inputs is called an "evidence-based" approach. Our local institutions better start gathering their evidence; they'll soon have to present it to taxpayers.