TORONTO -- Energy Minister Dwight Duncan says he will review expenses at Hydro One following a revelation that a key Tory political adviser expensed thousands of dollars buying meals for high-ranking politicos such as Mike Harris. A published report says Deb Hutton, a senior adviser to Mike Harris who went over to Hydro One, expensed $620 for a lunch with the then-premier at the upscale Canoe Restaurant in downtown Toronto, part of almost $5,000 spent in 2001-02 on meals with key Progressive Conservatives.

"I'm looking into all the expenses and a number of them appear to be purely political and didn't really deal with what I would call legitimate stakeholders," Duncan said yesterday at a Liberal government caucus retreat.

"I would note that none of those expenses included a single of three energy ministers that served under that time period."

Hutton said yesterday her duties at Hydro One involved stakeholder relations and that all her expenses were legitimate and officially approved by the utility.

"I feel confident about that . . . they were approved and, obviously, the corporation felt comfortable with that," Hutton said.

Hutton said during the three years she worked for Hydro One, the company was actively pursuing a mergers and acquisition program.

"I incurred expenses not only with provincial government officials, but also municipal and federal government officials," Hutton said. "One of my responsibilities was to meet with mayors and reeves and local representatives throughout the province."

Information about expenses at publicly owned Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation are only coming to light now under new regulations brought in by the Liberal government.

The previous Tory government exempted the hydro companies from Freedom of Information requests when it broke up the old Ontario Hydro.

Tory MPP Garfield Dunlop said, in hindsight, it was a mistake to exclude the two crown corporations.

Dunlop said the same rules that give the public access to provincial politicians' expenses should apply to all Crown corporations and agencies.

Dunlop described the $620 restaurant bill as "indefensible."

"Every public servant should be accountable to the public and I think that's why we need that legislation in place," Dunlop said.

NDP MPP Peter Kormos said the Liberals have just wasted $7,000 of taxpayers' money to bring an adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair adviser over for one speech to MPPs this week.

"I think the Liberals should be very careful about trying to single out Deb Hutton when this could well backfire on them," Kormos said.

"The Tories were atrocious troughers, but the Liberals share many of those same propensities in my experience here in Queen's Park."

Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said his government is trying to set a different tone than that of the previous regime, which was dogged by scandals of lavish expense accounts during its latter days.

"We do not have a taste for expensive restaurants and big expense accounts -- that's not our style," Sorbara said.