Justin Trudeau is being coy on whether the Liberals will run deeper-than-promised federal deficits to tackle the weakening economy, saying Canada can easily borrow more but that his government wants to shrink Ottawa's relative indebtedness in the years ahead.

Asked flat out whether he would allow Finance Minister Bill Morneau to exceed $10-billion year in deficit in his upcoming budget – the limit of the shortfall the Liberals promised in their campaign platform – Mr. Trudeau said this is up to Mr. Morneau.

"One of the things I have been very pleased with is we have government by cabinet, which means I have charged extraordinarily competent ministers to make the right decisions to lead the country in the direction we all got elected on," he told reporters at a cabinet retreat in southwestern New Brunswick.

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"I have instructed Bill to put forward a strong budget that reflects the needs of Canadians, and the needs of the Canadian economy – focused on growth while remaining fiscally responsible and I have every confidence in the world that this is exactly what we are going to deliver in our first budget."