Liberals post details of 2012 budget cuts withheld by Conservatives

After the former Conservative government made across-the-board cuts in the 2012 federal budget, the Parliamentary Budget Office complained the government was refusing its request to see details so it could analyze the impact of the cuts on services and programs.

Today, theTrudeaugovernment posted the information inan online spreadsheet.

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Canada's budget watchdog said he is hopeful thattoday'sgesture will markthe beginning of the end to "a long saga."

In an interview with CBC News, Jean-Denis Frchette said more important than the data itself is the government's commitment to work with his office in responding to requests for information.

"Now we have an open door to work with the departments and find out about the impact these cuts had on service levels on the government,"Frchette saidin a telephone interview Friday.

Treasury Board President ScottBrisonspoke about the government's decision to make past spending details available following question period Friday.

"The previous government cut by stealth. They refused to provide to Parliament, to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, to Canadians very important information about their fiscal plans."

"We are taking a different approach, including rendering public the information they had previously hidden from Canadians,"Brisonsaid in Ottawa Friday.

SeveralConservative ministers, starting in 2012, repeatedly accusedthenParliamentary Budget Officer KevinPage ofoverstepping his bounds.

Tony Clement, who was Treasury Board president at the time, said thatPage was operating "outside his mandate" by asking federal departments to disclose all financial and economic information.

Frchette's behind-the-scenes battle

The budget watchdog said the data provided by the government today is "not totally new," because some information began to flow last March after his own behind-the-scenes battle for information.

In 2013, the Federal Court dismissed on a technicality a request by Frechette's predecessor, Page, to consider whether he had a legal right to demand the government turn over information.

In his ruling,Judge Sean Harringtonlaid out a series of measuresthe PBO would have to pursue inParliament before it could resort to thecourts again in the future.

Frchette, whose mandate began in the fall of 2013,said he exhausted all the avenues set out by the federal court judge.

"I did all that. I complained to the Parliamentary Librarian, I complained to the clerks of the Senate and the House of Commons, I complained indirectly to the speakers as well."

Frchette said that in March 2015, the joint committee on the Library of Parliament gave him the leveragehe needed to ask for the data his office was seeking.

"A little bit more" information began arrivingafter that, he said.

"I followed exactly what Parliamenttold me to do."

Frchette could not say when his office would be in a position to release an analysis ofthe impact the 2012 budget cuts had on government services and programs.

The information made public today lists details of the cuts by department, along with the expected savings each year, beginning in 2012-13 through 2018-19 and ongoing thereafter.