The NDP is on the verge of breaking its first major election promise just months after defeating the Tories in the September 21st election.

During the election campaign, the NDP promised to keep the Balanced Budget Law (BBL) in place and not run a deficit. "Today's NDP will balance the budget and continue paying down the debt without raising people's taxes," stated one NDP press release. This is the message Manitobans needed to hear before installing the NDP in power.

Now the NDP says it's virtually impossible to avoid a deficit. A Deloitte and Touche review, ordered by the NDP after the election, estimates an end of year deficit for 1999/00 between $262 and $417 million.

Manitoba prides itself on its balanced budget law. It worked for four years on account of stiff pay penalties for politicians who ended the year in the red. Other provinces modeled their BBL on Manitoba.

So the NDP raised a few eyebrows when they announced their intention to run a fiscal deficit with impunity. Finance Minister Greg Selinger did outline a plan to lower the deficit, but did not commit to erase it.

The BBL was supposed to be an ironclad legislative control to prevent future deficits - save for years affected by natural disasters, wars or steep revenue dips. But now a chink in the BBL armor has been detected. The law allows for one fatal exemption.

Section 4(2) states that after an election, the new government is not required to balance the budget when a deficit is incurred in the fiscal year of an election. This loophole absolves any government from ever having to balance the books in an election year. And it appears that the NDP intends on taking advantage of it.

The obligation to balance the budget falls squarely on the shoulders of the government in power. There is no statute of limitation on government responsibility for the province's finances. Conceding defeat by surrendering to a deficit four months before the year comes to a close does not inspire confidence in the management skills of the government.

The authors of Ontario's new Balanced Budget Law did not find it necessary to include such a loophole. The NDP should move to close this exemption now that they are the first and hopefully the last to take advantage of it, if only to save their own hide when one day a new government rides into town.

But then again, the threat of a deficit might be a ruse designed to lower public expectations. Then out of the blue, the NDP raise Manitobans' spirits by triumphantly announcing a surplus at the end of the fiscal year.

Regardless, a deficit can still be avoided if the NDP reign in spending over the next four months. It seems rather preposterous that after four years of running back-to-back surpluses, former Finance Minister Eric Stefanson would suddenly leave the province in the lurch with an unavoidable deficit.

Mr. Selinger and his government were elected to balance the budget. If that means shaving $262 million from a $5.5 billion budget, then he should endeavor to do so. With 25 per cent of the fiscal year left to manage, Mr. Selinger should not abandon hope in finding five per cent in savings from program expenditures.

His counterpart in Ottawa Paul Martin put it most eloquently in the 1998 Federal Budget, "Canadians have paid to see the movie The Deficit. They don't want to see the sequel."