For much of this decade Canada has been the sole member of the G7 to maintain both a budget and current account surplus. Well the budget surplus is gone, Finance Minsiter Flaherty just announced. He sees GDP contracting by 0.4% next year and growth of 2.3% in 2010. Growth woes will eat into the surplus as stimulus spending and falling tax revenues combine to swing the budget into deficit. The Loonie is pretty well underpinned still, with the dollar trading below 1.2000. Having run a tight fiscal ship for years, Keynes would be proud of Canada for slipping into deficit to give the economy a fiscal boost.