Stephen Harper had some fresh thoughts on the economy tonight: he wants voters to know he's "worried" about their savings.

So important to Harper was this message that it was specifically read out loud ahead of time by a Harper communications adviser to a huddled crowd of journos before the speech was given publicly.

French-language reporters noted immediately that the comments were scripted in English only.

(Typically, all federal politicians say important stuff in both official languages, but this was especially unusual considering the speech would be delivered in Laval, Que.)

"It's not a finished version," they were told.

But sure enough, when Harper himself delivered it tonight, the economy comments were in English only. This makes it a lot more complicated for French-language broadcasters to use it.

And in French only, he had some choice language tonight aimed at Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe. Duceppe's party, of course, is what largely stands in the way of any dream of a majority for Harper.

Now surely, Harper wouldn't be directing some comments purely to English Canada and others purely to Quebec voters, and in so doing help direct news coverage, would he?

Recall his initial refusal to talk down Canada's cultural elite (as attendees of "rich galas") in French, where culture is a huge deal, as he had in English.

Perhaps it's all just coincidence.

Regardless, Radio-Canada's Daniel L'Heureux and Yvan Cloutier both took the unusual step of using an English-language clip of Harper (on the economy) in their news reports because that was the newsiest part. They ignored the easy temptation to help Harper trash Duceppe for a Quebec audience.

Bravo. As they say in Italian.

— Paul Hunter