Today, all three opposition parties voted no confidence in the Conservative government and therefore triggered an election. The die was cast after the opposition leaders each condemned the government for not spending enough money on their own respective priorities.

This budget did not deserve to get passed, but for entirely different reasons than those given by the opposition.

The Liberals demanded new social programs financed with borrowed money. The NDP demanded even more generous programs financed with even more borrowed money. And the Bloc demanded yet more money for Quebec, financed with everyone else’s money.

For the opposition parties, maintaining bloated stimulus-levels of spending was not enough, and so they declared their non-confidence in the government.

Yet for all the opposition’s bleating about the heartless Tories’ unwillingness to pony up the doe, they failed to point out the real reason this budget does not deserve their confidence: a failure to return spending to pre-stimulus levels and balance the budget.

Program spending under the Conservatives has increased by 40% during their first four years in power; beginning the day they took office and accelerating in 2009 at the behest of opposition parties. While claims that this so-called “stimulus” spending saved the Canadian economy from ruin are easily debunked, taxpayers were promised that such spending would be temporary.

Unfortunately, increased spending in other areas will eat up the room vacated by lapsed stimulus spending. While not growing as fast as earlier years, spending in this budget was projected to grow at a modest 2% over the next 5 years. While an annual 2% increase in spending is not unreasonable, it is from a hugely higher spending base then even two years ago.

To accept current program spending levels of $246 billion as the base from which to measure growth in government, is to accept a permanent increase in the size of government. Unless the Conservatives wish to be remembered in the history books as the party that increased spending at a rate matching some of the worst Trudeau years, a course correction in Budget 2011 was needed.

That budget failed to do so however, and therefore fails to deserve the confidence of Canadians who do not wish to live with a huge and permanent increase in the size of government, in addition to prolonged deficits until 2015-16.

And so taxpayers are left with a government that tabled a budget not deserving of their confidence, and an opposition that declared non-confidence in the budget for reasons that would make it even less deserving.

In the last election, every major party leader vowed that they would not run a deficit. When asked by a reporter in October 2008 if he could “just clearly and unequivocally rule out that [he] will run a deficit at any point during [his] term,” Prime Minister Harper answered, “Yes. Yes. Yes!”

The other party leaders gave similar answers to similar questions, yet all parties – government and opposition – failed to stand by this commitment. It is no surprise that no party wants to talk about where they would cut spending to balance the budget, but instead try to out-bid one another as which can spend more, more, more.

Canadians deserve a real choice at election time. They deserve detailed plans from each party explaining how exactly they intend to return the budget to balance.

It’s time for Canada’s leaders to put forward a real balanced budget plan that deserves the confidence of taxpayers.