Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer makes his way to the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, March 21, 2018. iPolitics/Matthew Usherwood

Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer told a crowd at the Manning Centre Conference on Saturday that a Conservative government would balance the federal budget, but wouldn’t say by when.

“Yes, we will balance the budget,” Scheer said to applause at the conservative networking event, during a Q&A with Global News’ Mercedes Stephenson.

Scheer said balancing the budget would be done through “a combination of big ticket items with controlling the rate of growth.”

“There’s been such rapid increases in the rate of growth of government spending that we can get a lot of the way there just by restricting the growth of government spending back to closer to inflation and population growth,” Scheer said.

Scheer said a Conservative government would cut funding of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which was established under the current Liberal government, as well as to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Scheer offered little specifics about when a Conservative government would deliver a balanced budget however, only saying it would be “over a shorter period of time,” if elected in the October general election.

The Trudeau government presented their final budget of this mandate, which projects a $19.7 billion deficit for 2019-20. In 2015, the Liberals ran on a campaign promise of returning to a balanced budget by the upcoming year. They have yet to post a surplus or an annual deficit less than $14 billion since assuming office that year. In this year’s budget, the Liberals are projecting the deficit to fall slightly next year, before declining to $9.8 billion in 2023-24.

[READ MORE: Liberals focus on skills, housing, students and seniors in pre-election budget]

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