Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has had it with Harper's stalling. Page said on Sunday that it's time to drag the Harper government into court.
Twenty of the Harper government's 80 departments and agencies are still refusing to provide details of spending cuts in the March budget.
Page wants to force Harper to reveal publicly details of all the government programs and services that were cut or reduced in the federal budget.
The last thing Harper wants is for the public to know in detail what's been cut, whether it's meat inspectors at packing plants, or environmental technicians figuring out whether climate change is killing the animals.
What Harper wants is for Page to examine only wonderful government job-creation programs and services.
Page wants to examine both sides now, the win and the lose.
Harper is obliged to furnish the figures by law, but his government has been procrastinating for the past three months, possibly hoping that Page will get tired and give up. His five-year term is up in March. Harper could wait him out. But it's not happening.
The most bizarre in all this is that it was Harper who proposed the Transparency Act to set up Page's job in 2006 and Harper who appointed Page to the job in 2008.
If Harper's intention was to ignore his own law why did he propose it? And then why appoint Page and then not let him do his job? Harper could easily have found some ‘yes-man' who to do his every bidding.
Page pushed Harper to provide figures as long as he could, and then warned he would take the government to court.
Now push has come to shove. We'll see what the judge says.
