OTTAWA, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Canada's Liberal government's economic update was released Monday afternoon, revealing that the deficit was much larger than the target promised by the former finance minister who resigned hours earlier.

Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister, in last year's fall economic statement laid out self-imposed fiscal guardrails to maintain the deficit-to-GDP ratio below one percent and the deficit below the 40.1 billion Canadian dollars (28.2 billion U.S. dollars) target.

However, the update put the figure at 61.9 billion Canadian dollars (43.5 billion U.S. dollars) for the fiscal year that ended March 31.

Freeland announced her resignation in a post on her social media account after the prime minister informed her on Friday that he no longer wanted her to be his finance minster.

Freeland, who was leading the cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations, admitted that for the past number of weeks, the prime minister and she "have found ourselves at odds" about the best path forward for the country.

Freeland also called for "eschewing costly political gimmicks" which she did not specify, signaling that she didn't think some measures of the federal government are prudent. Enditem

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