Government now says budget won’t reflect savings promised on campaign trail
Barely a week after the Conservatives were re-elected with a Parliamentary majority, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is backing away from a campaign trail pledge to eliminate the deficit a year earlier than planned. Flaherty now says the revised 2011 budget won’t show a surplus for 2014-15. A spokesperson for Flaherty says the savings promised in the Conservative platform “will get us to balance a year earlier, but [are] not part of the upcoming budget.” The Conservative election platform explicitly promised that “Through accelerated reductions in government spending, a re-elected Stephen Harper government will eliminate the deficit by 2014-15.”