Poll fudgits bring May budgets?

The provincial budget, never the most punctual even by Masters-Of-Our-Own-House standards, may be delayed until... May.

Or, at least those parts of it which don't provide HappyTalk chaff and flares for Our Dear Premier during bouts of bad news and negativity.

Rob Antle reports for the Telegram:

Traditionally, the budget is tabled in late March. Last year, it moved to late April, due to the relative lateness of the federal budget, which introduced a new equalization program.

This year, Williams said, the budget could come as late as May. The premier blamed volatile oil prices for the pushback.

"Volatile" usually indicates that there is an unpredictable fluctuation in a value.

In the case of oil prices, they have been, entirely unvolatile-ly, going up as of late.

Indeed, much of Our Dear... Everything — from the fantasyland Lower Churchill development, to Our Dear Equity Stake in offshore oil and gas projects, to Our Dear Holy War Of Autonomy Through Increased And Perpetual Equalization Payments — is predicated on the notion that oil prices will continue a smooth, inexorable, and thoroughly not volatile upward march.

So, with regards to the timing of the latest budget, the Billion-Dollar Blockbuster — "as late as May" — surely, certainly, nothing could be further from the truth than to suggest that, as in past years, like 2007 or 2006, May will be a month when CRA just happens to be in the field with its quarterly omnibus?