The Member of Parliament for Provencher says the new federal budget is a disappointment. Ted Falk says the economy is doing well these days and the government should be working to reduce the deficit. But, he adds, they are doing the opposite.

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Provencher MP Ted Falk"It's another deficit budget. It certainly isn't what they promised in the election two-and-a-half years ago when they said they'd work toward a balanced budget. It looks like we're going to have close to a $20 billion dollar deficit this next year again. I also don't see any recognition again for agriculture. In Provencher and southeastern Manitoba, agriculture is a very key component of our economy and again there's no mention of anything in there for agriculture, no new initiatives."

Falk says it is a concern that governments in Canada and the U.S. seem to have a reckless disregard these days when it comes to running deficits.

"It is a concern. It's certainly a different perspective than what we as Conservatives have. We believe that there should be more fiscal responsibility. We should be moving to a balanced budget. The economy is good right now and we need to make sure we're prudent with our finances and I don't think this is the right time to be running deficit budgets. I think now is the time, when the economy doesn't need the stimulus that it will when times slow down a little bit, that we should be balancing the budget."

Falk notes he did find one morsel of good news buried at the back of the budget, on page 356.

"There's a little thing under modernizing the financial sector framework, a bullet point that says, 'Providing prudentially-regulated deposit-taking institutions, such as credit unions, flexibility to use generic bank terms'. That's encouraging. It's something that I know the credit union system right across Canada and I know the credit unions in Provencher, whether it's Oakbank or Access, Niverville or Steinbach, were very concerned about, being able to use generic bank terms. So the government has clarified that. Credit unions will be able to use the generic terms."

The right to use terms such as bank, banking and banker was taken away from them previously at the request of the chartered banks.