Manitoba Opposition Leader Brian Pallister said Tuesday he would not cut overall government spending, only slow its growth, prompting accusations from the government that he is trying to soften his image in advance of next April's election.

Pallister, who has long criticized the NDP government for running deficits and has previously promised to cut department expenditures, told the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday he would limit the government's overall spending increases to a maximum of four per cent each year.

That's one percentage point less than what has happened during the NDP's 16 years in power, he added.

Pallister said any actual reduction in spending would do harm.

"I don't believe it's realistic to cut spending year-to-year, not even close," he told reporters after his speech.

"What we're trying to do is just change the slope of the increase in spending."

Premier Greg Selinger said Pallister's message is in sharp contrast to statements he has made since becoming Tory leader in 2012, such as musing about the possibility of two-tier health care during a radio interview.

"I would say that we should be very careful for wolves in sheep's clothing that are going to put Manitobans' core services at risk and wind up in fact privatizing them."

Opinion polls since 2013 — when the government raised the provincial sales tax to eight per cent from seven — have suggested Pallister's Tories are far more popular than the NDP government.

In the wake of the tax hike, Pallister promised to undo it if elected and issued a list of cuts as an alternative — a one per cent reduction in all department spending, a hiring chill in the civil service and cuts to government communications staff.

Since then, the NDP has run ads portraying Pallister as someone intent on spending and tax cuts that would gut health care and other programs.

But Pallister said he would preserve all front-line services as premier. He said he would also balance the budget, ending a string of NDP deficits that started in 2010. But he would not say exactly when a balanced budget might be achieved — perhaps not even during a first Tory term in office.

"I'd love to do that if thought I was in possession of all the accurate numbers. But I don't know. Every passing day, I'm hearing more and more from people saying, 'the NDP committed this' or 'they're promising that'. So what am I going to inherit?"