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The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is unable to fulfil its mandate if it can’t obtain the information it has repeatedly requested, Frechette told a Senate committee meeting.

The office has resorted to filing $5 federal access-to-information requests to get the data — and even those are producing limited results.

The PBO has submitted 33 access-to-information requests related to 2012 budget cuts, Fréchette said, and is still awaiting final responses on 11 of them.

Of responses to the other 22 requests, in 10 cases PBO received only limited data; six yielded no relevant data; in one, all information was withheld; in three, all data requested was provided; and two indicated the information requested was covered by another government department.

Fréchette said Tuesday he’s hopeful his office can use “parliamentary avenues” to obtain information from departments and agencies on the cuts, but says going back to court to obtain the data is still an option.

“The PBO has not yet received complete service-level data from federal departments and agencies, which is necessary to assess the fiscal sustainability of the Budget 2012 cuts,” Frechette told members of the Senate’s national finance committee.

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