One inconvenient fact stands between Jim Flaherty and the kind of budget the nation needs: Canadians go to the polls on Oct. 19, 2015. That means the finance minister must wipe out Ottawa’s $26.2-billion deficit by 2015, no matter how anemic the economy is or how depressed revenues are. If Flaherty fails, Stephen Harper will face the electorate as the prime minister who failed to slay the deficit. He will be unable to deliver the two expensive tax breaks he promised in the last election: a doubling of the limit on contributions to tax free savings accounts and income-splitting for couples with children. Flaherty learned how rigid the 2015 deadline is when he released his fiscal update last November. It projected the deficit would be eliminated by 2016 — a year behind schedule. Within 72 hours, Harper crisply corrected the record. “It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election,” he assured Canadians. The finance minister fell into line. “The prime minister and I are on the same page — we always have been,” he told amused reporters. Read more..< /a>