A federal budget is, to put it mildly, always a big deal. Every year, usually in February or March, the federal government details how and where it plans to spend about $200 billion in revenue in the next fiscal year. The budget documents set out the government's priorities – perhaps delivering on previous promises, or remaining silent on promises they've chosen to abandon.

Budgets are always considered confidence votes. Defeat on a budget vote results in the fall of the government. So, for a minority government, the budget-making process can be an especially delicate task, as Joe Clark found out in 1979 when his first (and last) budget went down to defeat in a House of Commons vote. A government's first budget attracts extra scrutiny as the pundits try to decipher what its spending allocations will mean for the country.

Some noteworthy budgets in recent Canadian history:

Finance Minister John Turner and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau enter the House of Commons for the federal budget on May 6, 1974. (Canadian Press)

1979: Prime Minister Joe Clark forms a minority government and famously says he plans to govern "as if he had a majority." John Crosbie is his finance minister. His first budget is also his last. The ill-fated budget calls for higher taxes, including an immediate four-cent-a-litre rise in the gasoline tax to help reduce the deficit.

Finance Minister John Crosbie and Prime Minister Joe Clark make their way to present their first budget on Dec. 11, 1979. (Red MacIver/Canadian Press)

Crosbie calls it "short-term pain for long-term gain." But it never sees the light of day. The Liberals and the NDP vote against the government in a motion of no confidence and the Social Credit MPs abstain. When the votes are counted, the Clark government's budget – and the government itself – are defeated 139 to 133, setting the stage for Trudeau's return to power in the 1980 federal election.

1981: Allan MacEachen was the Liberal finance minister. His 1981 budget was famous for trying to re-write the tax code. Many of the changes are jettisoned after an outcry.

1983: During a pre-budget photo session in the office of finance minister Marc Lalonde, a TV cameraman from CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ont., zooms in on budget numbers which are on papers lying on Lalonde's desk. To deflect charges that his deficit forecast has been leaked, Lalonde decides to boost spending in the final budget document, which allows him to claim that the correct deficit figure hadn't really been leaked..

1989: The contents of budgets are closely guarded secrets because a leak could allow a select few to make money on budget changes. Louis St. Laurent was rumoured to have required his finance ministers to type out their budgets themselves. But in 1989, the unthinkable happens: a document outlining the government's full budget plans is leaked to an Ottawa journalist. Doug Small of Global News gets a copy of the "Budget in Brief", and reports on it. Brian Mulroney's finance minister, Michael Wilson, is forced to hastily release the budget that evening, almost 24 hours before its scheduled release.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien watches while Finance Minister Paul Martin defends his budget to the opposition on Feb. 28, 1995. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

1997: Finance Minister Paul Martin announces the first balanced budget in over two decades. The next year, Martin confirms a surplus on the books.

2004: This budget is notable if only for the questionable calculations. Finance minister Ralph Goodale predicts a $1.9-billion surplus, which turns out to be $9.1 billion by the time the final numbers come in. The dramatic difference prompts a study of how the finance department forecasts such things. Opposition parties are critical of the "lowballing" of surplus numbers, and the difference likely contributes to Stephen Harper's government's decision to create a separate Parliamentary budget officer in its Accountability Act.