Prime Minister Jean Chrétien will be facing a tough sell with MPs in his own party when he presents his costly new social action plan in a few weeks.

With Finance Minister John Manley saying the government's financial cupboard is bare, Liberals are wondering how Ottawa can afford a raft of new programs without sliding back into a budgetary deficit- something everyone wants to avoid.

Chrétien, who has announced he is retiring in February, 2004, will unveil a wide-ranging set of social policies to Parliament next month.

With his legacy as prime minister in mind, he wants to put in place new measures to help aboriginals, fight child poverty, bolster the high-tech economy, improve the environment, refinance the health-care system, aid cities and tackle other problems.

Toronto MP Roy Cullen, a Liberal and a member of the influential Commons finance committee, said there are concerns about the effects of a possible "overzealous commitment to new social programs" by the Prime Minister.

"One of the things that will be difficult to manage is that he's got quite a shopping list and the budget surpluses will be quite modest," Cullen (Etobicoke North) said yesterday.

Manley, who has warned the public and the Liberal caucus that the hefty budget surpluses of the past have disappeared, is expected to appear before the finance committee soon after Parliament returns on Sept. 18 to bring MPs up to date on the government's financial picture.

"I'm sure there will be questions asked about not going back into deficit and what kind of expenditure pressures there are and what he plans to do about it," Cullen said.

With Manley expected to deliver a budget in November or December, the Commons finance committee will be engaged over the next two months in cross-country pre-budget consultations.

But Liberal MP Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges) complained that recent media reports detailing the social action plan proposed by Chrétien last week make it appear the budget has already been written.

"If you read the media, you'd think we don't have any budget to make up, it's already done," said Wilfert, a member of the finance committee and parliamentary secretary to Manley.

"I think they (the media reports) listed about $14 billion worth of goodies," said Wilfert, adding that the federal government doesn't have anywhere near that kind of budget surplus to spend.

Also, he said, the government is going to have to spend more on the expected ratification of the Kyoto treaty on climate change and to meet the possible recommendations for increased medicare funding from the health-care study being conducted by former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow.

At the same time, the five-year, $100-billion tax cuts announced in 2000 are still going ahead, Wilfert said.

As for the "wish list" of programs favoured by Chrétien, Wilfert said: "Well, you know, a wish list is just that."

Last year's budget surplus- the fifth consecutive surplus recorded by the federal government- hit $6 billion. But the turmoil on stock markets has led to an unexpected drop in federal revenues since the current fiscal year began on April 1. Economists now predict that Ottawa could have little or no surplus in the 2002-03 fiscal year.

London North Centre MP Joe Fontana said Canadians "have no appetite for big-ticket expenditures" when surpluses have dried up.

"I'm sure that Manley doesn't want to be the first finance minister to go back into the red," Fontana said. "And I'm sure that the Prime Minister wouldn't want that to be his exit legacy either."