TORONTO (Bloomberg) — Canadian stocks fell for a second time in three days, led by Research In Motion, after a budget proposal left out a capital gains tax cut some investors had expected and inflation unexpectedly accelerated.“Everybody in the investment community is disappointed the government didn’t do anything about the capital gains tax,” said Rob Callander, who helps manage about $800 million at Caldwell Securities in Toronto. “The big question is whether this is an opportunity to pick up some bargains, or the end.”

The S&P/TSX slipped 34.33, or 0.3 percent, to 12,977.41 in Toronto as all 10 industry sub-groups fell. Yesterday, the benchmark rose 1.4 percent, for its biggest gain since January 23.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s budget boosted spending to win votes and gain a majority in the House of Commons. The projected budget surplus will fall to C$3.3 billion ($2.8 billion) from C$9.2 billion, leaving the Conservative Party unable meet a campaign pledge to abolish the capital gains tax for people who reinvest profits from selling assets such as stocks.

A gauge of technology shares dropped 1.8 percent.

Research In Motion, the maker of the Blackberry e-mail phones, declined C$3.99, or 2.6 percent, to C$152.60 and was the biggest drag on the S&P/TSX, on speculation it may face stiffer competition in the future in the event that rival Palm Inc. gets a new owner.

Palm, the maker of the rival Treo e-mail device may be close to finding a buyer, technology Web site Unstrung.com said, citing no one. Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker, may be the top bidder and Palm managers are said to prefer a private equity buyer, Unstrung reported.

Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners may be interested, the site said, without saying where it obtained the information.

Palm spokeswoman Marlene Somsak and Nokia spokeswoman Eija- Riitta Huovinen declined to comment. Silver Lake spokesman Matthew Benson and Owen Blicksilver of Texas Pacific also gave no comment.

Nortel Networks lost 74 cents to C$30.04. North America’s biggest phone-gear producer yesterday dropped 3.3 percent after releasing a sales forecast for the year that fell short of analysts’ estimates.

Not all computer shares fell. Cognos, Canada’s biggest publicly traded software maker, added 25 cents to C$46.89.