Why did the Liberal Party agree to support Stephen Harper’s 2009 budget?

The Liberal Party agreed to support Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2009 budget in exchange for the government’s commitment to provide three quarterly budget reports. These reports were intended to serve as confidence matters, which would provide the opposition with formal opportunities to bring down the government if they determined that sufficient progress was not being made.12

This agreement followed a period of intense political instability in late 2008, when the three main opposition parties threatened a no-confidence vote to topple the Conservative minority government and replace it with a coalition government. To avoid this defeat, Harper requested that Parliament be prorogued. When the session resumed in January 2009, the government introduced a revised budget that included an economic stimulus package to address the global recession, which the Liberals ultimately agreed to support under the condition of the aforementioned reporting requirements.312