Flaherty Mixed Fiscal Restraint With Streak of Mischief

Stored somewhere in Jim Flaherty’s garage at his home near Toronto is a waffle costume his campaign used as a prop during its losing bid for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in 2002.

Canada’s former finance minister, who died suddenly yesterday at age 64, would dress campaign workers in the outfit to illustrate how his main opponent in that race, Ernie Eves, wasn’t decisive, a “serial waffler.”