I disagree on two points here, Bob. First, Harper left office running a surplus, so his deficits were in fact, eliminated - and that in spite of governing through the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression.

Second, Paul Martin and Jean Chretien's "deficit killing" was build on the back of the GST introduced by Brian Mulroney's Conservatives. Although bringing in the GST was effectively committing political suicide, Mulroney put his personal ambition aside and did what had to be done to keep the country solvent. 

The Liberals, if you recall, campaigned on rescinding the GST, then once elected, promptly forgot all about that promise. Even then, Chretien and Martin's balanced budgets were only achieved by offloading responsibility for service delivery to the provinces. In effect, the Liberals continued to collect the tax revenue while failing to provide the services. Any fool can collect a pocketful of money by charging for services they then refuse to deliver.