Yeah, Layton definitely isn't my favourite guy ever, either. His head seems in the clouds more than anything else. Unlike a car salesman, however, I think he actually means what he says, despite how impractical it may be. Harper, on the other hand, makes my skin crawl. As leader of the opposition he calls the government on all sorts of negative things, but were he in power, he'd be doing just that and more, I have no doubt. Shudder.
As for the french stuff, I think what you're seeing is just them saying the same thing they said in english, only for the francophone folks. Which is cool by me, since yeah, they live in our country and everything. It's not like they're saying "Tax hikes everyone, sorry" in english, and then in french, "Allo allo! Les tax cuts, oui?"