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Page asked Magnet for a legal opinion on departments’ refusal to give information about the cuts in his battle to shed more light on the nature of the cuts and the impact on programs and services to Canadians. Page has issued two calls to departments since the March budget for information on the cuts. So far only 18 of 82 departments have complied.

However, the battle took a dramatic turn when Privy Council clerk Wayne Wouters, the country’s top bureaucrat, told Page, on behalf of all deputy ministers, that they couldn’t release the information because their hands were tied by collective agreements with federal unions that oblige them to first inform unions and employees about the cuts.

With the legal opinion, Page has again asked Wouters to release the information “immediately” because that information is critical for “Parliament to exercise its constitutional role of controlling public finances.”

However, his letter to the clerk makes no reference to going to court to force the release. Page has said he was prepared to go to Federal Court if he and Wouters were unable to resolve their differences over the timing and release of information about the cuts.

“The information should have been provided as requested and both your department and other departments have not complied and are in violation of their legal obligations under the act,” Page wrote in a letter sent to Wouters.

The parliamentary budget office was created to help parliamentarians in their key constitutional role to scrutinize the way the government raises and spends money and hold it to account.