Consider $105 billion. That's 105 (plus nine zeros), the projected cumulated deficit!

This clip from the Vancouver Sun is worth a view:

"Besides, a silver lining of Liberal opportunity was on display in the dark and stormy clouds posted Wednesday by Kevin Page, Canada's parliamentary budget officer .

The more we hear from this guy, the more you understand why Harper has been trying to gag his analysis by cutting his budget and placing him under the supervision of Parliament's librarian.

Page posted the bleakest fiscal analysis yet, noting any trace of near-term optimism has been vanquished from the wisdom of financial soothsayers as he braces Canadians for deficits that were unthinkable six months ago.

Consider $105 billion. That's 105 (plus nine zeros), the projected cumulated deficit he thinks will be incurred over the next five years even before Finance Minister Jim Flaherty starts shovelling the mother of all deficits into the sputtered economy.

The mind reels at this prognosis -- a spreadsheet from Conservative hell with very little structural room for lasting tax cuts.

With that sort of future shock emerging as a long-term Conservative legacy -- and frankly there aren't many alternatives to deficit spending except to commiserate at the ineffective GST cuts from the first Conservative term -- the Liberals' best friend is time.

That giant sucking sound you'll hear on budget day Tuesday is just the start of Conservative economic credibility being drowned. "

James Morton