Balanced budget to drop Tuesday in N.B.

New Brunswick Finance Minister Victor Boudreau says he'll be bringing in a balanced budget on Tuesday, but the Opposition says that could mean some cuts in services.

Boudreau told reporters Monday it wasn't easy because the Conservatives left the government with a financial shortage when the Liberals came to power five months ago.

"We were faced with some pretty tough realities, a projected deficit of between $300 million to $400 million, if everything remained status quo," Boudreau said. "We have looked at that and we have taken charge of the situation. We've looked at the expenditure side, we've looked at the revenue side and we will be tabling a balanced budget tomorrow."

Boudreau said the $6 billion 2007-08 budget he'll be tabling will honour commitments the Liberals made during last year's election campaign.

It will also set out long-term policies the government will be implementing over the coming years, he said.

"This is more of a transactional budget for our first budget," Boudreau said. "But it does lay the groundwork for us to do some of the transformation things that we do want to do later on in the mandate."

The Opposition Tories have been saying the only way the government can meet its commitments and balance the budget is to make drastic cuts in services.

Boudreau's response is to wait and see until the budget is tabled.