Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said yesterday any action to bring the budget back into balance would likely centre on the 2,500 programs the governments runs outside transfers to the provinces and individuals.

"That is where we could restrain the rate of growth," Flaherty said in an interview on BNN.

Those programs are currently growing at a 3.3 per cent pace and that could be reduced if needed, Flaherty said.

The current exit strategy from the government's recession-fighting efforts is to allow all temporary stimulus programs to expire and wait for the recovery to kick in, Flaherty said.

"That will help us get back to balanced budgets," Flaherty said.

The recovery strategy has included tax reductions and an extension of employment insurance benefits, plus 4,000 stimulus projects currently underway across the country and another 3,000 to come.

Flaherty's comments follow a speech at a Bay Street luncheon in which he said there will be no room for "major new" spending programs in next year's budget outside of what is to be spent as part of the two-year, $46.6-billion stimulus plan.

However, he added he's not prepared to introduce a detailed plan on spending cuts to bring the country's burgeoning debt under control. No such plan will emerge, he indicated, until there is "evidence of firm growth" in the economy.

Instead, the government's focus will be to ensure its stimulus plan is implemented. That plan is to expire in March 2011, and Flaherty has said money not spent as of that deadline will go back into federal coffers. According to the government, 90 per cent of the stimulus funds have been spoken for.

The stimulus package will result in Ottawa posting combined two-year deficits of just over $100 billion, for this fiscal year and next. The federal debt is set to climb back over the $500-billion level this weekend, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and head toward $630 billion by 2015.

By 2015, the government envisages running a smaller deficit of roughly $5 billion.

Flaherty acknowledged in his remarks the need to get the country's fiscal house in order so it can meet the challenges ahead, such as lagging productivity and an aging population.

But spending cuts will not be in the offing until there is evidence of "firm" growth in the economy.