Deficit Jim Flaherty, credited as steady finance minister, resigns

OTTAWA Jim Flahertys resignation from cabinet Tuesday marks the end of a tumultuous eight years as finance minister and leaves Prime Minister Stephen Harper scrambling to find a replacement in the governments most important portfolio. Harper was expected to name a new finance minister on Wednesday.

The 64-year-old Flaherty made the bombshell announcement Tuesday barely a month after tabling his latest federal budget, which projected the federal government would balance the books in 2015-16.

The resignation comes shortly after Flaherty openly questioned the wisdom of the governments plan to introduce income-splitting for families, a position that placed him at odds with other cabinet ministers and even Harper.

But the man sometimes tagged with the unflattering nickname Deficit Jim wont even be in government to watch the Conservatives get back into black ink. Nor will he be in cabinet to push through legislation enacting his own most recent budget.

His resignation from cabinet is effective immediately, but his office said he will stay on as MP for Whitby-Oshawa for the time being.

Flaherty is the only finance minister the Harper government has ever known; he was appointed to the post when the Conservatives won power in 2006.

He is widely credited by political observers and many economists as the steady economic hand who helped the government fight its way back from the depths of the recession to the verge of a balanced budget.

Yet by the end of the 2014-15 fiscal year, under Flahertys watch, the government will have added $150 billion more to the federal debt than was there at the beginning of the economic downturn in 2008.

Opposition parties have highlighted the mounting deficits and federal debt as examples of how Flahertys economic record isnt nearly as strong as the government trumpets.

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Deficit Jim Flaherty, credited as steady finance minister, resigns