Two Canadian economists doubt the NDP can produce five consecutive balanced budgets with a program that calls for increased spending on social programs and a mix of tax cuts and tax increases.

Peter Dungan, an economist with the Rotman School of Management in Toronto doubts the NDP can pour billions of dollars into various social programs and balance the budget at the same time.

"The programs they're proposing are quite expensive," said Dungan. "There's several billion dollars a year if you don't pay down the debt, but the rest [of the money] must come from tax increases."

The party's scheme to tax bequests of $1 million or more and slap people earning more than $250,000 a year with a three per cent tax increase is a bad idea, said Jack Carr, a professor at the University of Toronto.

"We had an inheritance tax. It has all sorts of negative consequences," he adds.

Carr also dismisses the NDP idea of tearing up treaties with tax havens like Barbados and Bermuda, countries where wealthy Canadian have chosen to live or conduct business in order to avoid paying Canadian taxes.

Carr adds the NDP have little chance of forming the next government so it can afford to be generous.

One economist who agrees with NDP Leader Jack Layton's election platform is Ellen Russell, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning organization.

She believes Layton's proposed $79 billion initiative shows a new realism for a party that once claimed 'deficits don't matter.'

"They're just using common sense assumptions to show that they can balance the books and do what they say they want to do," said Russell.