OTTAWA - Conservatives were forced to defend their new election platform from opponents who derided it Saturday as a fiscal fantasy that sugar-coats the bitter reality of impending budget cuts.

Other parties heaped ridicule on the Tory promise to not only erase the deficit a year early -- in 2014 -- but to do it while heaping huge tax breaks on families and ramping up health-care spending.

Some of that will be achieved with $11 billion in cuts to the federal budget over four years -- but the Conservatives have not explained where the slicing and dicing would occur.

The Tories promise to find the savings through a review of government programs; they argue that some of the cuts will be a simple matter of making adjustments to the way departments operate.

But their opponents scoffed Saturday at the notion that multibillion-dollar budget cuts could be achieved painlessly.

"Eleven billion dollars of cuts over three years will have a devastating effect on the capacity of the Government of Canada to serve our citizens," Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said.

"Eleven billion dollars is slash and burn. And what matters here is, 'Who's gonna get hurt?' Immigrant services will get hurt. (Employment Insurance) might get hurt. Investment in education. And, above all, health care.

"And it's not just that they'll have a devastating effect on government. They undermine the credibility of this regime as managers.

The Tory platform promises cutbacks of $1 billion in 2012, $2 billion in 2013, and $4 billion in each of the following two years.

The Conservatives have cast themselves as a lone voice for fiscal prudence and called a news conference Saturday to attack their opponents as a coalition of big spenders.

"They are united in wanting costly tax-and-spend promises and dangerous soft-on-crime policies," the Tories said in a news release.

Those cutbacks were hinted in the federal budget released just over two weeks ago -- but they haven't been identified yet. They were officially added to the Tories' fiscal projections in the party platform released Friday.

Then, moments after releasing their platform, the Tories promised to continue ramping up health-care spending by six-per-cent a year after the current federal-provincial health accord expires in 2014.

"I'm speechless," Ignatieff told a news conference.

"Seventeen days ago, we had some numbers. And hey, presto! Seventeen days later, whoops, we've got a whole set of new numbers. Go figure. This attacks their basic credibility as a government -- as managers."

Ignatieff has been railing for two weeks against Conservative spending priorities on what he calls jets, jails and corporate tax cuts. He's now mocking Harper's assertion that the purchase of F-35 fighter jets will come in on budget.

Ignatieff says U.S. President Barack Obama and his secretary of defence don't even know the true cost of the developmental fighter jet, while Stephen Harper claims he does.

But some analysts say the Liberal platform also contains a fiscal hole that could hide a few billion dollars.

The Liberals claim their promises are "fully costed," citing increased revenues from raising the corporate tax rate back to the 2010 level of 18 per cent.

Some economists dispute the Liberals' estimate that the move will boost revenues by $3 billion in the first year, $5.2 billion in the second and by $6 billion in the following years.

Economists such as Jack Mintz have suggested the real figure could be as low as $1.2 billion a year.

The NDP says neither of the two other parties is blameless.

Leader Jack Layton told a Saskatoon audience that the Conservatives will hurt Canadians' quality of life with budget cuts -- but aren't informing voters what those cuts will be.

As for the Liberals, he said, they have a pretty poor history when it comes to inflicting painful budget cuts.

"(The Liberals) put out a platform where they only put the costing for the first two years, and then they tell us they're gonna balance the budget. Well, we know what that means," Layton said.

"They're going to be bringing in the cuts, just like was done by the Chretien Liberals in the mid-'90s when we saw the biggest cuts to housing and health care and education in the history of this country.

"That is not the path to go down. You cannot trust the Liberals on this issue."

Layton said his party will release its platform Sunday.

He said the document would be inspired by party icon and former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas, who protected social services while introducing a string of 17 consecutive balanced budgets.

The NDP was shut out in Saskatchewan in the last election. But the party finished second in numerous ridings and hopes to make a comeback in a province that holds historical significance for it.

Ignatieff was vying for a similar comeback north of Toronto on Saturday. He was in Vaughan, where his party lost a seat to Conservative Julian Fantino in a byelection last November by less than 1,000 votes.

Ignatieff has also visited the riding of Oak Ridges-Markham, where the Liberal incumbent lost to Conservatives by less than 500 votes in the 2008 election.

Liberals hold 80 per cent of the roughly 50 federal seats in the Greater Toronto Area -- meaning half their 77-member caucus at Parliament's dissolution came from the region.

It was a down day for Harper. The prime minister and his wife, Laureen, cheered on their son as his volleyball team won a match at a tournament in Durham, Ont.

As for the rest of the weekend, Ignatieff said he'll be preparing for next week's leaders' debates.

The Liberal leader joked that, because he's the only rookie leader in the debates, he'll have to spend the weekend preparing and unfortunately won't have time to watch hockey or the Masters golf tournament.