Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to table his second budget on March 20, government officials have told CTV News.

The budget will include tax cuts, funding to combat climate change, and billions of dollars of equalization money for the provinces, according to CTV's Robert Fife.

Quebec is expected to receive at least $1.5 billion, which should help the Conservatives improve their standing in the province.

Canada's premiers are scheduled to meet on Feb. 7 in Toronto to discuss a new equalization formula.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams and Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert have criticized plans to include non-renewable resources in the federal program.

But other provincial leaders, such as Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, have argued for the inclusion. McGuinty has also said that Ontario loses $2.5 billion a year because the transfer payments are uneven.

The $12-billion equalization program aims to ensure a standard level of government services across the country.

In the last fiscal update in November, Flaherty said he planned to wipe out "net debt" by 2021, although critics questioned the use of such a statistic.

Liberal MP John McCallum, a former Royal Bank chief economist, argued net debt is an arcane statistic that "nobody except a few economists in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) have ever heard of."