Ahead of an important fiscal update this week, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is demanding Prime Minister Mark Carney cap the federal deficit at $31 billion, in part by eliminating big ticket items like a major rail project and the gun buyback program.

"We should have no deficit," Poilievre wrote in a letter to Carney. "And if I were Prime Minister right now, we would be on track to achieving that. But your Liberal government has made that impossible for this year."

The $31 billion cap Poilievre proposes is what the former Trudeau government projected the deficit to be for the 2026-27 fiscal year when it tabled the 2024 fall economic update.