The Tories are safe, at least for the time being, as the Liberals have pledged to support the budget and avoid an election.

The latest tabled federal budget introduced by the Conservative government proposes the smallest spending increase in over a decade, a by-product of a government faced with an unstable economy and a record deficit.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will increase spending by $1.1 billion, the smallest increase in a federal budget since 1997.

In a five year forecast Flaherty vows that the deficit will have been all but eliminated by reigning in spending and relying on increased economic growth.

Flaherty says he will ensure that no new taxes are implemented but by cutting waste in government a balanced budget will be a reality.
“Increasingly Canada is being pointed to as the country best situated coming out of the recession,” says Okanagan- Coquihalla MP and Treasury Board President Stockwell Day.

“If you are going to keep taxes down you also have to keep down expenditures.”

The NDP and Bloc Quebecois have said they will not be able to support this budget, as it does not go far enough in relieving the victims of the recession but allows billions of dollars in tax breaks for banks.

“The idea that banks whose profits have doubled since last year are the ones getting the cuts, because this government wants our corporate tax cuts to be the lowest amongst industrialized nations is wrong,” says B.C. Southern Interior MP Alex Atamenko.

“The shift in taxes over the years has gone from the corporate sector onto the backs of individuals.”

With the upcoming freeze on government spending municipal governments will be on the hook to find ways to implement projects Canadians are increasingly asking for – going green, social housing and fixing our decaying infrastructure.

Most of the money that was allocated for such projects, as part of last years stimulus package has all ready been spoken for, so any new projects will be scraping the bottom of an almost empty cookie jar.

"I see that I am being called Dr. No in the media," says Day.

"I guess it could be worse- they could be calling me Darth Vader."

"It will be Dr. No when it comes to increases that don't fit with our fiscal plan," Day adds.

"And Dr. Yes for the innovative approaches that the public service has shown in the past."

This leaves uncertainty when it comes to the stability of public sector jobs.

“In the last year over 330,000 jobs were lost in Canada, 60,000 of those were in B.C., says Newton-North Delta MP Sukh Dhaliwal.

“Even a year ago Prime Minister Harper said we would not go into recession or bring in any deficit budgets, says Dhaliwal.
“But now we are $53 billion in debt.”