Apolitical Staples

Andrew Coyne's latest echoes Alan from the comments.

...while the broader debate about Canada's lagging productivity featured the usual hand-waving about "encouraging excellence" and spending more on education, there was also a steady drizzle of sensible, even radical economic reforms. These included cutting income taxes, perhaps putting green taxes in their place; dismantling our remaining barriers to trade, internal and external; opening up protected sectors like telecoms and transportation to foreign investment; and increased private financing of public works. The former finance minister, John Manley, in particular, seemed to take special delight in trashing every nostrum of economic Liberalism, even proposing legislated caps on public spending at one point. (How one wishes he'd shown the same zeal while he was at Finance.)
Put them all together, and you would have a quite exciting economic platform, one that would reinvent the political spectrum. It won't happen, of course, but that the Grits are even permitting such heresies to be discussed has to be counted as progress.

There is a school of thought that the Liberals could out-flank the Conservatives on what are seen as right-wing economic issues. A liberal optimist could say that the Liberals are re-finding their liberal roots but, as John Ivison points out this morning, this is the party that will try to win back power as the party of Trudeau. Sure federalism and economic policy are separate issues but Trudeau was such a complete disaster on the economic front that playing the Trudeau "one Canada" card conjures up memories of "broke Canada" - good luck walking that tight-rope.
Further, if the Liberals do indeed tack to "the right" on economic issues it would not be hard for Conservatives to tack right along with them. These economic issues are where conservative parties typically lead in public perception so the Conservatives could easily hold on to these issues. But what a great thing it would be if they had a rigorous debate on tax policy, competitiveness and producitivity - and Canada would be much the winner.