Margaret Thatcher once said that she was told her election campaign wasn’t sufficiently slick, “which we regard as a compliment”.

That speaks to a belief in the minds of many voters that ignorance is honesty and cleverness is slippery.

The Carney government’s attempt to divide its spending into “operating” and “capital” was too clever by half. Establishing an accounting framework that is overcomplicated and open to manipulation is an idea that was always destined to get the government into trouble.

And so it has proven.

In the aftermath of a budget that claimed it would balance the operating budget within three years, while racking up deficits by spending $311.5 billion on capital projects, there are now claims of sleight of hand .

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), headed on

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