OTTAWA - A new poll suggests the Harper government won't suffer a political price from backing away on its balanced-budget promise.
The most recent poll by The Canadian Press-Harris Decima finds 63 per cent of respondents blaming international factors for the government's inability to eliminate the deficit as promised in 2014.
And a similar number said they agreed with the new plan not to take steps to ensure the deficit is eliminated in less than four years.
The survey taken in the second week of November also shows that the broken promise surprised almost no one.
Where the Canadian public appears most divided is on the question of what the government should do next.
The poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted Nov. 10-13 and is considered accurate to within 3.1 points up or down, 19 times in 20.
A slight majority of those surveyed -- 53 per cent -- said they believed Ottawa should control spending, while 43 per cent said the government should continue spending to create jobs.
In general, Conservative supporters sided more with spending controls, while professed Liberals and New Democrats gave a slight nod to stimulus spending.
