Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in the House of Commons during Question Period this afternoon that his third budget will be tabled in the House at 4 pm on Tuesday, February 26.
Now, it’s a remarkable thing for a minority government to table two budgets — but Flaherty will get to number three. I don’t think even the most optimistic Conservative back in early 2006 would have thought the Government was going to get this far. That might explain why the cupboard is pretty much bare for Flaherty right now. The Conservatives have rolled out all the big-ticket items and spent all the surplus (when I say “spent”, I really mean allocated, as in allocated billions to pay down the national debt) so there reallly isn’t a pile of money for Flaherty to announce a big sweeping go-to-the-polls type of plan.
“Well, there are some initiatives that we propose to have in the budget,” Flaherty told reporters who scrummed him after Question Period. “But certainly this is our third budget and I'm going to talk about what we've accomplished cumulatively in just over two years with the two budgets which will be two budgets plus the two fall economic statements and the fact that Canada is in the best position really of the G-7 countries to go through what are more difficult economic times. That's certainly what I heard this weekend in Tokyo from my colleagues in the G-7. There's some envy of the fact that we have such strong economic fundamentals in Canada.”
The numbers in the House being what they are, the Government needs one and only one Opposition party to support it . All three Opposition parties have to vote against the budget and that would trigger a federal election in April. Flaherty was asked if there will be something in his budget that at least one of the other parties can support.
“It's a good question,” he said. “I've had meetings last week with the three critics. I must say that the meetings were not terribly productive. Although there were some ideas put forward that I think are ideas that would help in terms of communities and individuals who are suffering because of industrial slowdown in those particular communities. So there may be some room for some discussions. I'm certainly going to go back and have some further discussions.”
My colleague Steven Chase reports in the Globe and Mail this morning that the surplus might be a teensy bit bigger than expected — but not by a whole lot.