The chart, and numbers, say it all.

Harper and his Conservative government cronies have been piling on the debt for virtually all of fiscal year 2008/09, and, only after the fall election has come and gone, Harper and Flaherty now tell us its going to get much worse.

Cumulative financial source (surplus) and requirement (debt)

Figures are from the monthly Fiscal Monitor, published by the Ministry of Finance: All Months 2008 | November 2008 (PDF)

Even as Stephen Harper and Jimmy Flaherty were pounding the election trail telling us that Canada would not experience a recession, and would not entertain the notion of fiscal deficits, Stephen Harper's government was piling on the debt in Canada. That was back in October. In November it got even worse.

There is no other way to put this - the big lie they told allowed them to hang on to power.

During the election, Harper knew that his government was piling on the debt already. On the hustings both he and Flaherty promised that Canada would not entertain deficit spending, but even as he made that promise Canada was already funding its spending via debt. The government was, and clearly still is, spending more than it takes in.

While politicians may try to hind behind cute word games like "budgetary surplus", real Canadians know that if they spend more than they take in, they go deeper in debt, whether one had a budget for the spending or not.

As the financial source/(requirement) chart above shows, throughout this fiscal year the Harper government's financial performance has dramatically underperformed every single government this decade, and has done so for virtually the entire fiscal year. Even during the 911 and SARS crises Canada's finances handled the stormy weather with ease. Under Harper's watch, the bilge is filling, the pumps aren't working, and the boat threatens to sink into the sea.