Idle Election Speculation

This is an interesting story on cbc.ca quoting Harper reassuring the business community that the first step to stopping the mounting deficit will be taken in the next budget. I suppose the majority of prognostication on the budget has been that it will be more fiscally austere than the last, well, four. I'll leave the structural deficit issue aside. What I'm interested in is whether or not Harper is still trying to provoke an election. Harper may be thinking it's still December 2008 politically by leaking this kind of story. He's now got eight weeks to get the opposition angry enough to either bring him down or for him to go the GG and cry unworkable parliament again. If he thinks the opposition wants more stimulus, this would certainly be a shot over their bow.