"...The government also said it would not commit to balancing the budget next year, saying that trying to do that at any cost would hurt Canadians more than it might help them. A month ago on the campaign trail, though, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was unequivocal in saying his government would never go into deficit.
"There's nothing on the horizon - notwithstanding the storm clouds, and they are significant - that indicates to me that we should immediately go into deficit," Harper said on Oct. 6.
But Jean, reading the throne speech with Harper at her side, said, "In a historic global downturn, it would be misguided to commit to a balanced budget in the short term at any cost."
McCallum seized on that, accusing Harper of lying on the campaign trail and rejecting the government's excuse that a Canadian deficit will have been caused by events outside Canada.
"We are seeing that Mr. Harper was misleading the Canadian people during the election," McCallum said. "If this is to be a deficit, and it now looks like it will be, it will be a made-in-Canada Conservative deficit. The overspending and the erosion of the tax base and the cutting of the contingency reserve - all of that preceded this economic crisis."
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