The Prime Minister of Canada, in an interview with CTV News in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada has confirmed first time that his Conservative government’s January 2009 budget would push Canada into a deficit, while including billions of dollars in spending. “The truth is, I’ve never seen such uncertainty …,” the Globe and Mail quoted Harper as saying in the interview. “I’m very worried about the Canadian economy.”

The Prime Minister also raised the possibility that a depression — loosely defined as prolonged recession where output declines more than 10 percent — might be possible. “It could be, but I think we’ve learned enough from the 1930s to avoid some of the mistakes that caused a recession in 1929 to become a depression in the 1930s.”

The opposition parties refused to endorse it, leading Prime Minister Stephen Harper to request Parliament be shut down to January 26, rather than face a confidence vote.