No one ever claimed stevie as a "great financial wizard." Stephen Dion and Jack Layton were saying they could balance the budget as well, but we all know they would be in the hole for billions more than the current government is.

The reality is that Harper couldn't predict the complete collapse of GM and its subsequent bailout by the US (which required Canada to act to save our portion) and he also couldn't predict that he would get a minority government and would be forced into a massive deficit spending by the Seperatist Coalition threat.

What Harper was saying during the campaign about producing a surplus was the same as what the other parties were saying what their budgets would be.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

That's something that really annoyed me about the Liberals. They really screwed up the budget with their bloody threats.

you say that as if 50 billion is a small debt

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What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

as for Layton and Dion will never know how they would have done, judging performance on maybe's isn't honest...past liberal govenrments with Martin as FM did very well...NDP governments in Sask have always been good sound money managers...

the cons whole premiss for governing is they are better at economics and Harper was portrayed as the "steady hand at the tiller"(no recession)...the banks new and said we be in for a tough time over a year ago, the construction industry said it was coming two years ago, GM and Chrysler have been in trouble for years.... how is it the steady hand who says he is an trained economist didn't hear what everyone else did(even me and I'm a financial idiot), he's incompetent or a liar...I'm thinking he's both....

Wow, you must have been living under a rock. During the last election Harper DID SAY we are in for a tough time. He also said we didn't have structural financial problems in real estate or banking, which he was also right about.

He was wrong about not being able to produce a surplus, but MANY OTHER GOVERNMENTS WERE ALSO WRONG, including pretty much all Canadian provinces and the governments of many other countries. So, clearly everybody didn't know it was going to be this bad, contrary to your ignorant claim that they did. However, our government also had to spend money to save our portion of the auto industry and to live up to our obligations internationally to do our part in the global recovery, which explains why deficit spending had to occur.

Just a few weeks ago, the IMF again stated that Canada was in way better shape than most other countries. Obviously Harper's tax cuts and GST cuts have helped us stay in much better shape than most other countries, in addition to good regulations put into place by Harper and previous governments.

Yet, you may continue to aimlessly bash Harper. It doesn't seem to be affecting him his party is still doing better than the Liberals in the polls. People apparently like his steady hand over the economy, as opposed to the potential nightmare we would have to endure under a tax hiking, Trudeau loving, business killing Ignatiaff Liberal government.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/...ves062509.html

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill