Q wrote "Prime Minister Harper, who is trying to lead the country back into solvency."

Let me point you to this piece written by columnist Andrew Coyne which is excerpted from here:

"Be under no illusion about this: the five years of "austerity" on which we are now embarked will be, after inflation, adjusting for population growth, the five biggest spending years in the history of the country — other than the last three. All that the Tories are proposing to do is to roll back some of the increased spending that they themselves introduced. The public service from which the Tories pledge to trim 19,000 employees is the same one to which they added more than 30,000."