By selecting the best-case scenario as his backdrop, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's budget seems aimed more at getting the Conservatives through a general election later this year than it is a detailed plan for returning Ottawa to sustainable budgetary surpluses.

Some economists think the minister's projections to "grow" the economy back into the black are too optimistic.

While others note that by ignoring the two big federal-provincial transfers that will have to be negotiated over the next five years, during the period the huge deficit is to be eliminated, Flaherty's framework is incomplete at best.

But, in the short term, it doesn't matter if the dissenting economists are right or the minister is.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and boss Stephen Harper entering the Commons for the budget speech on March 4, 2010. (Reuters)

Because by rolling out this second year of stimulus spending, the program announced a year ago to counter the global recession, the government is almost guaranteeing that by this autumn or early next year — prime election periods — things will both look and feel better economically than they do right now.

So don't be surprised if, by this time next year, the Harper government will have found a way to justify once again ignoring the fixed-date election law and send the country to the polls.

Or else it will be sitting pretty while the opposition parties take their chances and vote non-confidence.

Either way, from this distance and without a crystal ball, it looks like good political strategy for Jim Flaherty and his boss.

The icebergs ahead

Ignored in all of this will be the pending negotiations between Ottawa and the provinces over health care and equalization, funding agreements that come to an end in a few years.

What's more, these agreements won't just be ignored by the government, they will be ignored by all the federal parties except perhaps the Bloc.

Why? Because the negotiations will go right to the heart of how this country functions and how Canadians see themselves. As well, these upcoming talks on health care and equalization will be particularly contentious this time.

On health care, Ottawa and the provinces are currently nearing the end of a 10-year, $41-billion agreement negotiated in 2004 between then prime minister Paul Martin and the premiers.

When he came to office in 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his government would honour that deal and that no new federal spending on health care would be necessary beyond that which had already been agreed.

As a result, the money keeps rolling out as planned, which in this case means that the annual health-care payments to the provinces are growing at a faster rate than inflation and population growth.

That is because the deal was negotiated when the federal government was brimming with surpluses and looking to mend fences after nearly a decade of cuts to the provinces.

When this deal expires at the end of 2013, even the finance minister's optimistic figures show the federal government will be in the red by more than $8 billion.

And since changing health care is more controversial in this country than even changing the words to O Canada, you can imagine what the negotiations will be like three years from now.

The real have-nots

For many people (for many premiers especially) equalization can be just as contentious as health care, perhaps even more so.

It is not front of mind the way health care is for most Canadians, but it is entrenched in the Constitution, which gives it a particular status that most other government programs don't have.

Through equalization, Ottawa redistributes the money it collects in taxes so that each province can provide relatively the same level of services to its residents.

Historically, it has been the taxpayers of Ontario, Alberta and B.C. who have been, in effect, subsidizing the seven other provinces through equalization. Though the current recession and the manufacturing meltdown have knocked Ontario onto the list of the so-called have-nots.

But now, these wealthier provinces are starting to complain. A recent study by the Calgary-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy says that, because of equalization, those provinces that have traditionally received equalization are now able to provide a higher level of public services to their residents than those that do not get the transfers from Ottawa.

Controversially, the paper authored by Ben Eisen and Mark Milke, is titled: "The Real Have-Nots in Confederation: Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia."

Paying the piper

Although equalization is in the Constitution and many provinces, particularly in the Maritimes, rely it for a significant portion of their annual expenditures, it is, in fact, a federal program that can be set at any level Ottawa decides.

In 2006, the Harper government adopted a new formula proposed by a special arms-length commission that had been set up to study equalization.

Two years later, it then capped the payments under the new formula because, like health-care transfers, they were growing faster than the economy and the population.

So, with a health-care agreement soon to expire and the fairness of equalization starting to be questioned, how each is resolved is going to have a long-term impact on both federal and provincial budgets.

Both issues will have to be faced at some point. But obviously not yet by Jim Flaherty and his best-case scenario budget.