The home renovation tax credit, which spurred spending at Canada's hardware stores, will not be extended in the March 4 budget, a senior government official told reporters. (CBC)

The Conservatives faced renewed accusations of showing contempt for Parliament Tuesday for revealing broad outlines of a budget the Liberals and the NDP say does nothing to justify a three-month prorogation of the House of Commons.

Details given to journalists on Monday by a senior government official suggest Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will table a very safe budget next week that will use a dull axe to cut spending.

Flaherty has already incurred the wrath of opposition politicians for saying his budget would essentially amount to a "stay the course" document.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he needed to suspend Parliament in the dying days of 2009 until March 3, 2010, so he could recalibrate his government's response to the economic crisis.

'Having prorogued Parliament ostensibly to … plan the budget, the government is now saying the budget will contain essentially nothing.'— John McCallum, Liberal finance critic

"Having prorogued Parliament ostensibly to recalibrate and plan the budget, the government is now saying the budget will contain essentially nothing," said Liberal finance critic John McCallum.

"That kind of contradicts their rationale for prorogation."

NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair echoed the Liberals' sentiments and called the Tory document a "do-nothing budget."

The March 4 budget will include no new spending or tax measures, but neither will it reduce spending on pensions, health care or education transfers to the provinces, the official said.

Public servants had been girding for a battle with the government to protect their pension plans, but it appears they can stand down for now.

The budget will not extend the popular home renovation tax credit that expired at the end of January.

The document will outline how the government plans to slow the rate of spending to begin eliminating the $56-billion deficit. A job-creation plan will also be at the heart of the budget, the official said.

"The plan will be about where spending will slow," said the official, who briefed reporters on condition he not be identified. "The government is looking for savings from slowing the rate of spending."

There is still $19 billion in new spending measures to be injected into the economy from the $46-billion stimulus package introduced in last year's budget, which is to last until March 31, 2011, the official said.

Tories waging 'jihad' on Parliament

McCallum stressed that the Liberal budget priority is to bring down the unemployment rate to deal with the "jobless recovery" of the economic downturn.

The Liberals and New Democrats have demanded the government encourage new growth in jobs. Emerging common ground over job creation appears to be the face-saver that opposition parties need to support the minority Conservative government and spare the country what would be a wildly unpopular federal election.

Leaking parts of budgets is not new, but when opposition parties learned that aspects of the budget had been provided to journalists in advance, it sparked a fresh round of partisan bickering.

"They've suspended Parliament; now, they're showing a singular lack of respect for the rules and traditions of Parliament by leaking the budget to some journalists," said Mulcair.

"Once again, the Conservatives have failed to respect our parliamentary traditions, and we will be holding them to account when Parliament finally gets back to work next week."

Liberal trade critic Scott Brison said the prorogation, combined with Monday's disclosure of budget details, amounted to a "jihad" on Parliament by the Conservatives.

"It is shocking that a prime minister who ought to have learned a lesson from the public response to his attack on Parliament with prorogation to now effectively leak a budget to the media … it's absolutely unacceptable," Brison said. "He doesn't respect democratic institutions."