Finance Minister Jim Flaherty appears to have backed away from a campaign promise that the Conservatives would be able to balance the federal budget in three years, rather than four as they had forecast in March.
In an interview with CTV's Power Play on Wednesday afternoon, he cautioned about ongoing turmoil in the global economy. When asked if he was committed to eliminating the deficit in three years, he replied: "No."
"I think we have to look at all the data," Flaherty continued. "We use an average of the private sector forecasters, that's what we've done for years now to make sure we are on the right track and in sync with the view of the private sector on the economy.
"So we will look at all of these things. There are a couple of platform commitments too that we will look at as well, but fundamentally, we will have the same budget that was introduced on March 22."
Earlier Wednesday, Flaherty had told the Council of the Americas in Washington that his budget would be re-introduced in Parliament and that the country's books could be back in the black within three to four years.
Still, Flaherty said that taxes would not go up this year, despite the aggressive push to eliminate the deficit.
"We have no intention of raising taxes. Our intention is to continue to lower the tax burden on Canadians and stimulate the private sector, which after all, is the engine of the economy," he told Power Play.
Flaherty's comments came as he pushed for other nations to balance their books following large government stimulus spending programs over the past few years.
Some of the Canadian government's budget optimism comes from a plan to examine public sector spending and trim away the fat. Flaherty said that the government plans to undertake a "strategic and operating review" that is expected to save $4 billion annually, without any serious cutbacks.
"We haven't booked that yet (and) we'll put that in future budgets once the plan has been determined and put in place," he said.
Ironically, it's the March 22 budget that essentially forced Canadians to head back to the polls earlier this month.
The budget was rejected by all three opposition parties when it was introduced in March. If the document had gone to a vote it likely would have resulted in the government's fall and triggered the election.
Instead, the government was found to be in contempt of Parliament over its failure to release information on its spending plans, a vote that collapsed the government before the budget vote took place.
Now, the finance minister says the government will be able to make longer-term plans than it could in the past.
He said the Conservatives worked well as a minority government, but constantly had the threat of an election hanging over their heads, making it difficult to plan for the future.
"It's a challenge in a minority system because you have to run two tracks all the time. You run a longer term track -- a medium to long term track -- and then you're running a 45-day track all the time because you don't know when you're going to be defeated," Flaherty told the Council of the Americas in Washington.
"So this will make it easier to plan in a concrete way for the medium and the long term."
Flaherty said the main issues during the election were the economy, jobs and economic growth, and said the majority Conservatives will be able to address those concerns and "make sure we stay the course and have at least modest economic growth," going forward.
