Further to my comment above, I should clarify that the $330b debt of Mulroney’s refers to that incurred during his years in power and does not include the $110b left by Trudeau. I have based my figures on the following:

http://blogs.usask.ca/the_bolt/archive/2008/01/canadas_national_debt_gdp.html

This development is very disappointing to those Canadians who had wanted Iggy and the Libs to vote against the last budget and send Harper and Flaherty packing, albeit with a lot of expected protests and misinformation about the coalition being illegitimate. A previous Cons government (Mulroney), had already been responsible for leaving Canadians with the highest gross national debt at about $330b when he left office. Trudeau, blamed by many Cons supporters as a big spender, in contrast left us with about $110b national debt, only a third of Mulroney’s. Maybe Harper will now beat Mulroney’s record — remember Harper has in addition proposed to spend $490b on the military over the next 10-15 years.

The Libs would undoubtedly, IMHO, have done a significantly better job at handling the economic crisis with the strength of the people that they have (Paul Martin, Maccallum, Goodale, etc). Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Iggy and the Libs had decided to stick the Cons with the biggest deficit label, again (after Mulroney, that is), apparently hoping that this will bring them back to power. Question is how can you claim that this is all the fault of Harper/Flaherty when you have voted in support of the budget that has led to this? Remember, Iggy himself eloquently innumerated the various concerns that he had with the budget and then let it through without a single amendment.