Yesterday's provincial budget has one surprise for Portage la Prairie Chamber of Commerce President Dave Omichinski.

It was the eight-year time frame for dealing with the 890 million dollar deficit, and balancing the province's books.

At the same time, he stresses the Conservatives have only been in power for a month.

"It's been characterized in many cases as more or less a stand-pat budget. There are no new taxes or tax increases. I think one of the positives is personal income taxes will be indexed to inflation, starting next year. The other thing they did is eliminated the per-vote subsidy for political parties, so there wasn't anything terribly earth-shattering."

Omichinski understands carrying that kind of deficit for so long could leave the province vulnerable, but he's not too concerned.

"They're going to take some time to get their heads around exactly where there might be some opportunities. On the other hand, had they announced that they had every intention of bringing the budget into balance, say within four years, that could have well sent some real concerns out there, because of the sheer size of the deficit. I mean, 890 million dollars, that's a lot of money."