Three months after the federal Conservatives passed their budget, with the support of the Liberal party (outside of Newfoundland & Labrador), members of all three opposition parties are calling for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to resign, or be fired, from his position. These calls come at the heel of Flaherty’s recent announcement that the Federal deficit will be much higher than predicted -- $16 billion dollars higher, to be precise.

In January, the Conservatives, who promised during the Federal election in October 2008 that there would be zero deficit spending, forecasted a deficit of some $34 billion in 2009-2010. Prior to that, in the Conservative's economic update in the fall of 2008, Flaherty had predicted a surplus for 2009. Now Flaherty is saying the deficit will run over $50 billion dollars. If things continue at pace, we’ll soon find ourselves in hole much deeper than that.

However, Jim refutes the opposition’s demands that he step down or be fired, saying “I’m busy doing my job.” That may be true, but clearly, he’s not doing it very well. Indeed, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has gone so far as to call Flaherty’s “handling” of the economic crisis “incompetence on a historic scale.” Perhaps a little harsh, there Michael, but then again, maybe not. Ignatieff went on to (correctly) tell the House of Commons that “Canadians are tired of these sorry ‘guesstimates’ – they want to know the truth” about how far deeper in debt we’re going to get as these recession days continue to pile up.

For his part, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick to call Ignatieff a “hypocrite”, slamming the Conservative government one moment for running a deficit, then demanding the government spend more money the next.

Of course, Steve has a point: it can’t be easy trying to fix a system that’s inherently fucked while pandering to opposition politicians who are vying for a chance to run the show. Then again, Harper offers no realistic answer to Ignatieff’s question, passing the buck back to the economy, saying the deficit spending will end when the economy rights itself. However, there is globally no sign of any economy righting itself as of yet, so I for one, am not holding my breath on that one.

Meanwhile, other economic shenanigans abound across the Dominion. While upwards of 300,000 jobs have been lost since the Conservatives promised not to run a deficit if reelected in October 2008, board members of the Canadian Pension Plan, which recorded losses of $24 billion in 2008, awarded clearly inept executes some $17 million in bonuses in the past 2 years.

NDP leader Jack Layton called out the Prime Minister, who approved the bonuses, on this issue. In their inimitable style, Harper and Flaherty shrugged off these criticisms, with Steve saying, “That is a board decision, not a government decision.” Enough said, right? I mean, those board members only lost $24 billion of tax payers money, while Harper and Flaherty are in the process of potentially pissing away upwards of four times that amount.

So: should Finance Minister Flaherty step down, or should the PM fire the bastard? Conversely, should a man who less than a year ago, while much of the world was already beginning to feel the “credit crunch”, predicted Canada would enjoy a surplus of government funds this year be allowed to keep his job in the face of what is approaching an $80 billion-plus deficit?

In the real world, far removed from the chauffeured, air-conditioned bubble of Ottawa, this sorry bastard would have lost his job months ago. Such is life. Tighten your belts, friends -- this shit storm is just beginning!