Bleeding Heart Tories

Gone are the nasty neo-liberals, the would be Republicanadians and their social conservative allies, that made up the Canadian Alliance and Harpers new Conservative Party.

Harper paints Tories as party of the middle

With this budget it is the return of Brian Mulroney and his Bleeding Heart Tories, as the Economist branded his government. It is as promised Harpers make over of his Conservative government into the Mulroney Government of yesteryear. Just as Mulroney advised him to do; Harper rallies troops with call to listen to middle-class voters

He has successfully taken the middle of the road, the mushy middle, much better than even the Liberals. In fact this budget is a classic Liberal budget, sans their usual big breaks for big business. In fact it has even resurrected some Liberal programs. Harper's un-conservative spending spree

Sure there are targeted corporate tax breaks aimed at sectors like Manufacturing and small business, but balancing that out is tax rulings eliminating investment off shoring and tax havens. Something the well connected Liberals would never do.

While this will not affect the average Canadian, it should see a reduction in classified ads in the Globe and Mail Business pages and Financial Post for all those tax havens offshore and tax avoidance schemes.

And the Conservatives have made White Collar Crime a priority, true at the bottom of their list of crime initiatives, but still it's the thought that counts.

As usual the devil is in the details. But the bottom line is this is a hold the line budget. The dogmatic need to purge all things Liberal, to cancel programs that their social conservative base has long rallied against (with the sole exception of the Firearms registry), this budget had no spending cuts. And it had little in the way of social program spending either.

It was a sop to all parties and interest groups. There was something in it for the Bloc, the Liberals and NDP. It may not be what they want, or enough, but for appearances sake the Conservatives can claim they listened.

Just as Flaherty praised lobbyists like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, whose wish list for small business was put in the budget.

Income splitting for stay at home spouses is there, long a bugaboo of the social conservative lobby for middle class wives who can afford to stay home.

Heck they even are eliminating the tax breaks for investment in the Tar Sands, by 2015. However they replaced that with a tax credit for investment in green technology for the very same Tar Sands.

And they have solved the Fiscal Imbalance by giving the provinces their choice of payment programs. A shining example of the ideology of choices so enamored by the neo-cons.

Is it an election budget, sure. Is it a program for an election or even the basis of a platform? No. But it is a budget that allows the Conservatives to stay in power. They are betting on it being winner, that is if they go into an election they can use it, and if they don't it gives them time to plan for the election next year. And as it kicks in it placates the vast middle class in Canada they hope it will improve their poll numbers.

Key suburban voters big winners in budget

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