Legal expert

A prominent constitutional lawyer says Canada`s top bureaucrat and 64 deputy ministers who have failed to provide details about the nature of the Conservative government`s $5.2 billion in spending cuts in their departments are violating the law and should turn the information over to the parliamentary budget officer.

Joseph Magnet, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said deputy ministers are obligated under the Parliament of Canada Act to release to Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Kevin Page economic data their departments have collected. Refusing to give that information contravenes the law, which was among the reforms the Conservatives passed in its signature Federal Accountability Act.

``As the information the PBO requested constitutes financial or economic data, necessary for carrying out the PBO`s mandate, and is neither personal information, the disclosure of which is restricted by the (Access to Information Act), nor information contained within a Cabinet confidence, the deputy heads are required to comply with the PBO`s request,'' Magnet concluded.

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.

In the opinion, Magnet and lawyer Tolga Yalkin said the Parliament of Canada act gives the budget officer the authority to request ``free and timely access to financial or economic data'' that deputy ministers have in their possession to fulfil that mandate. The only grounds for refusing are if the PBO request involves private or personal information that is restricted under the Access to Information Act, or if the data is part of a cabinet confidence.

In his original letter, Wouters doesn`t cite any of these legal grounds for these exemptions, and instead argued that the contractual obligations of collective agreements with the 18 federal unions prevented the release of any further information.