ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Typically in Canadian elections, Conservatives promise to balance budgets while Liberals accuse them of hiding secret agendas to cut public services – but not in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Progressive Conservative Leader Ches Crosbie says he has no plans to balance the provincial budget within a four-year mandate if he’s elected on Feb. 13. Instead, the Tory leader says he’ll help grow the economy through government spending.

Crosbie’s position is a rebuttal to what he claims is Liberal Leader and incumbent Premier Andrew Furey’s secret plan for budget cuts.

The reversal of traditional roles among the two main parties is beffudling to Tim Powers, managing director of polling and market research company Abacus Data.

“I feel like I’m watching and living in what a toddler would describe as ‘Opposite Day,”‘ he said in an interview Monday. “It really is a strange thing to see the Conservatives accusing the Liberals of effectively having a hidden agenda.”

He adds: “Somewhere Stephen Harper is smiling,” referring to similar allegations that were lobbed for years by the Liberals against the former Conservative prime minister.

Newfoundland and Labrador has always marched to the beat of its own drum, Powers said, adding that the province’s distinct nature is likely not going to change in a winter election held in the midst of a global pandemic.

Polls had Furey with a robust lead over Crosbie before the Liberal leader called the election on Jan. 15. Crosbie is working to close that gap by promising to increase government spending and by pressuring Furey to release what he calls the “Greene report” before the Feb. 13 vote.

The so-called Greene report is what Crosbie calls the review of government services and spending undertaken by an economic recovery team assembled by Furey in the fall. The team is chaired by Moya Greene, a St. John’s-born businesswoman with a reputation for privatization. A draft of the report is due two weeks after election day.