Flaherty squeezes in a few Liberal notes

This is something I've never heard a Conservative Minister say:

On one hand, we have people urging us to slash spending across the board, no matter the effect it will have on services we provide to Canadians.  On the other, we have calls for billions of dollars of new spending that will impose deficits on our children and grandchildren for years to come or higher taxes that kill jobs and growth.  We reject both these extremes. We will continue with our balanced approach.

That's from Flaherty's speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce yesterday.  Them's centrist words!!!!!  Reminds me of...

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Bob Rae is emphasizing the traditional, fundamental philosophy of the Liberal party as he drives home the importance of "protecting the earning power of the middle class."

At the root of Mr. Rae’s speech is a claim – which will be hotly contested by the other parties – that the Conservatives and the NDP are guilty of populist pandering to their core constituencies.  “The trouble with the populist narrative, whether of the left or the right, is its essential dishonesty,” Mr. Rae maintains, “as if a simple bumper sticker ‘tax the rich’ or ‘tough on crime’ is really going to provide answers to the real issues we face as a country.”

As for the rest of the speech, pure harper conservative.  Jimbo's dime store crystal ball is as ineffectual  as ever, and he has to apply politic-speak to say the harper government can't keep it's promises to it's base -

Let me be clear: we will not be bound by ideology when it comes to making decisions to keep our economy strong and protect Canadians, their financial security and their jobs.

Translation: dear rabid base, my party fucked up so bear with me while I break a whole slew of ideological promises.

Heed the relentless and increasing calls from some corners to betray those principles, and watch all that they made possible vanish.

Translation: support those lefty-pinko-commie-dippers-and-libs and we're all fucked.  Because they're...bad.  And they love taxes and criminals, and they hate the troops.

While we must all recognize that the global outlook remains fragile, both the Prime Minister and I fully expect European leaders will turn these plans into action, and do what must be done to overcome an up-until-now unresolved crisis.  After all, these efforts were vital to our nation’s economic future, and built on the significant actions our Government has taken to keep our economy secure and resilient.

Translation:  It's not our fault!!!  And if things don't work out here, it's because those fence-sitting European leaders couldn't get their shit together.

We have responded to critical situations with flexibility and pragmatism, and we will continue to do so as situations dictate.

Translation:  we haven't got a clue what the future holds, so we may need to flip-flop as we have done for the past four years.