OTTAWA—Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says Canadians shouldn’t expert any goodies in the way of tax breaks or new spending programs when the government overhauls its agenda in advance of a throne speech next month.

With the Conservative government at the mid-point in its tenure, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced he will close Parliament briefly to give him the chance to lay out a new set of policies to carry his party into the 2015 election.

But Flaherty, who is determined to eliminate Ottawa’s $18-billion budget deficit by the next election, told reporters Wednesday it’s “unlikely” the Conservatives’ new agenda will involve any significant spending initiatives.

His staff gave him a stamp with the single word “No” on it and “I intend to use it a lot in the next few months,” Flaherty remarked on the sidelines of a two-day private think-tank meeting with selected business executives, bankers and other prominent Canadians.

Flaherty said he is confident the government will succeed in balancing its books before voters go back to the polls in the fall of 2015.

“We’re still on track. We are going to stay the course. We are going to balance the budget without doubt in 2015,” he commented. “That is our goal, to get back to that equilibrium. If you are looking for anything startling from the Department of Finance I think you’ll be disappointed.”

Eliminating the deficit will be a test for the government because in the 2011 election Harper delivered several popular long-term promises for Canadians. Once Ottawa eliminates its budget shortfall, the Conservatives are committed to doubling the children’s fitness tax credit, bringing in a $2.5-billion measure to allow income-splitting on young families’ tax returns, doubling Tax-Free Savings Accounts limits to $10,000 a year and introducing an adult fitness tax credit.

Asked Tuesday if the government will fulfill its promise on the most costly item, income-splitting, Flaherty said he hopes so but “we’ll have to see” how the Canadian and global economies perform over the next 18 months. A healthy economy produces the flow of tax revenues needed to balance Ottawa’s books, whereas slow growth tends to push the government into a deficit position because of weakened tax revenues and higher costs for programs like Employment Insurance.

Asked if the government plans more measures to cool down Canada’s housing market, Flaherty said “there are no plans presently to intervene further” in the mortgage market to head off a housing bubble.

He pointed out that the government has moved several times in the past five years to tighten up mortgage availability. With the exception of condo prices in Toronto and Vancouver, “I’m satisfied that the measures we’ve taken over the past several years have adequately calmed the markets,” Flaherty told the media.

But he said Ottawa is vigilant about a possible price-inflation boom in real estate. “What has been done before can be done again — if we have to,” Flaherty noted.

He also said the federal government’s chances of eliminating the budget deficit by 2015 will not be impacted by the need to provide financial assistance to help Alberta recover from this summer’s flooding and support Lac-Mégantic, Que., in the wake of the devastating train derailment in July.

“We’ll be okay. I’ve looked at the numbers,” he said when asked if Ottawa can afford assistance that is likely to run into the billions of dollars. “We can go to a balanced budget still. There’s enough room.”

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