[CivicAccess-discuss] Machine Readable Federal Budget?

[Kent Mewhort]

Jonathan, I tried to get this information a few months back, but had no
success.  I first asked the Department of Finance for budget data, but,
after a two month wait, was simply told:

>The budget documents are only available in PDF and HTML formats, and can be
found on the budget website at www.budget.gc.ca.  Thank you for writing.

I then turned my head towards expenditure data from Public Accounts
(specifically, I asked for the raw data in "Public Accounts of Canada 2010 -
Volume II - Details of Expenses and Revenues").  The folks at this
department were responsive and seemed quite willing to provide the data if
they easily could -- but unfortunately could not:

>The production of the Public Accounts involves a lengthy process of
gathering financial information from all departments and agencies, often in
various formats. This information is then analysed, tagged and loaded in
style sheets through the use of a utility program for publication using
Ventura desktop publishing. Volumes thus produced contain such large and
complex files that it is only practicable for us to offer them in two
formats, i.e. PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) and the printed format
which is tabled in the House of Commons each year.

This is definitely something to ask for in the federal portal, now that it's
up and running!

Kent

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 7:05 PM, James McKinney <oxford.tuxedo at gmail.com>wrote:

> There's been some interest in this in the OpenHamilton group
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/openhamilton/browse_thread/thread/47d0955e5d880785
>
> No report of even a non-machine readable version of the federal
> budget. I haven't looked for it yet, though.
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Jonathan Brun <jbrun at jonathanbrun.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi,
> > Is there a machine readable version of the Federal Budget available? If
> not,
> > does anyone know anyone who would be interested in generating it.
> > Thanks,
> > JB
> > MontrealOuvert.net
> > jonathanbrun.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> > CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
> > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
> >
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://civicaccess.ca/pipermail/civicaccess-discuss/attachments/20110520/c3d83274/attachment.html>