Its obvious that you haven't paid attention the past 12 years or don't understand certain fundamentals. Do you know what a Minority Government is? Do you understand how it works? You are in power and your opponents have more seats. To stay in power you meet their demands. A world wide recession came along and ALL parties voted for deficit spending. Harper also had a war to fund that Chretien sent us to under-manned and under-equipped. When Harper got his Majority (like Trudeau has now), he eliminated the deficit and left with a surplus budget. Trudeau has no excuse other than broad pandering to his snowflake base, his enviro-loon base, and his Indig base.