The Canadian Press

The Harper Conservatives faced renewed opposition accusations Monday of showing contempt of Parliament for revealing broad outlines of what they called a do-nothing budget that does nothing to justify their three-month prorogation of the House of Commons.

Details given to journalists on Monday by a senior government official suggest Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will table a very safe budget next week that will use a very dull axe while cutting spending.

Flaherty has already incurred the wrath of opposition politicians for saying his budget would essentially amount to a “stay the course” document.

Next week’s budget will include no new spending or tax measures or cuts to pension plans, said a senior government official who briefed journalists Monday.

Nor will it include any extension of the popular Home Renovation Tax Credit that expired at the end of January.

The document will outline how the government plans to slow the rate of government spending to begin eliminating the $56 billion deficit. A job-creation plan will also be at the heart of the budget, the official said.

The Liberals and New Democrats have demanded the government encourage new growth in jobs. Emerging common ground over job creation appeared to the face-saver that opposition parties need to support the minority Conservative government and spare the country a wildly unpopular federal election.

“The plan will be about where spending will slow,” the official said, who briefed reporters on condition that he not be identified. “The government is looking for savings from slowing the rate of spending.”

“There is still $19 billion in new spending measures to be injected into the economy” from the economic action plan, the official said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he needed to suspend Parliament in the dying days of 2009 until next week so he could recalibrate his government’s response to economic crisis.

“Having prorogued Parliament ostensibly to recalibrate and plan the budget, the government is now saying the budget will contain essentially nothing,” said Liberal finance critic John McCallum.

“That kind of contradicts their rationale for prorogation,”

Leaking parts of budgets is not new, but McCallum stressed that the Liberal budget priority is to see strong action to bring down the unemployment rate to deal with the “jobless recovery” of the economic downturn.

The senior government official told reporters the March 4 budget will not include any reduction in spending on pensions, health care and education transfers to the provinces.

Public servants had been girding for a battle with the government to protect their pension plans from the axe, but it appears they can stand down for the moment.

The common ground that was staked out over job creation appeared to the face saver that opposition parties needed to support the minority Conservative government and spare the country a wildly unpopular federal election.

But when opposition parties learned that aspects of the budget had been provided to journalists in advance, it sparked a fresh round of partisan bickering.

“It compounds the problems of prorogation because it shows when they prorogued and when they used the excuse that they needed to prepare a budget, that it’s going to be a do-nothing budget,” said NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair.

Mulcair said the disclosure shows a deep contempt for Parliament and a lack of respect for democratic traditions, such as budget secrecy.

“They’ve suspended parliament, now they’re showing a singular lack of respect for the rules and traditions of parliament by leaking the budget to some journalists,” said Mulcair.

“Once again the Conservatives have failed to respect our parliamentary traditions and we will be holding them to account when Parliament finally gets back to work next week.”

Liberal trade critic Scott Brison said the prorogation, combined with Monday’s disclosure of budget details, amounted to a “jihad” on Parliament by the Conservatives.

“It is shocking that a prime minister who ought to have learned a lesson from the public response to his attack on Parliament with prorogation to now effectively leak a budget, to the media . . . it’s absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “He doesn’t respect democratic institutions.”