Finance Minister Jim Flaherty decided to hold a press conference today, which initially led to all sorts of speculation what it might be – perhaps a crafty move to try and pressure opposition parties not to vote the Conservative Government down?

If that was the goal, I’m not sure this speech is going to do it:

The Conservatives admitted today that the federal government deficit would be worse — a total of $101 billion this year and next — than expected and that the government cannot say when it will balance the books again…In the budget, Flaherty had predicted that the government would begin running budget surpluses again [...]