Like most federal budgets, this year’s version was as much political theatre as it was a fiscal policy document.

Not surprising for a pre-election budget, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty included a little something for everybody — well, almost everybody.

The provinces got several billion dollars in new transfer money, including $800 million next year for post-secondary education; and consumers will get general cash rebates for buying environmentally correct cars, while those continuing to drive gas guzzlers will be penalized like smokers.

There will be more gas-tax funding for municipalities; and for the ordinary, hard-working taxpayers this government is trying to romance, the feds are offering a basket of goodies ranging from a working income tax benefit of $1,000 for families to $30 million for local arts.

Even the Status of Women Canada, which had experienced budget cuts after the Tories took office, got $10 million to combat violence against women and girls.

And so on. This was a budget aimed at the Tim Hortons crowd, after all.

Not on the budget radar screen this year, however, was export development in emerging markets such as India, China or Brazil. Although there was much rhetoric about Canada’s competitive advantage, trade development in the emerging markets wasn’t part of it.

The budget did include relief for Canada’s manufacturers, who are combating the effects of a high dollar. But words, like productivity or trade, don’t appear to have fit in with this year’s big picture from the Department of Finance.

Perhaps talk of trade or export development would remind people of the $410-million CANTrade program, which the Conservatives killed soon after they took office last year.

Or, perhaps, trade as a priority has sunk along with the political fortunes of its minister, Jim Emerson. Either way, it is not a federal priority at a time when most of the world is rushing to enter the markets of China, India and the other emerging giants.

Sandwiched in between the pre-election goodies are some signs of actual policy development.

For ordinary Canadians, this budget enshrines a principle that reduced interest payments on the national debt be used for tax reduction. Whether this principle survives is not clear at this point. But, at least, it is acknowledgement of the need for tax cuts as Ottawa’s balance sheet improves.

Of interest to Bay Street are federal plans to reform the regulation of capital markets.

In the back pages of federal budgets in past years, one would find, along with obscure changes in cost accrual or tax treatment for medical devices, Ottawa’s long-standing desire for a single securities regulator.

This time, the issue actually made the budget highlights section. And, for the first time anyone in this year’s budget lock-up can remember, capital markets regulatory issues got its own information table, with half a dozen Department of Finance officials ready to answer journalists’ questions. Few journalists went to see them, however.

As this issue has been on the federal agenda for about 50 years or so, it would be unrealistic to expect a national regulator before or immediately after the next federal election.

But regardless of timing, Ottawa’s wording in this year’s budget makes it clear that the feds want to step up discussion of this issue.

The Tories want a new approach to securities regulation, with a country-wide approach that is principles-based instead of rules-based regulation. In other words, Ottawa would like Canada to embrace a softer regulatory enforcement environment like the one in Britain instead of the draconian approach of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

At a time when the Toronto Stock Exchange is losing listings to the New York Stock Exchange, the feds clearly want to ensure this country’s capital markets remain competitive and able to attract Canadian as well as foreign issuers.

Of course, one way to protect Canadian capital markets would have been to have kept the promise to cut capital gains taxes. But tax breaks for business are part of the pre-election strategy this time around.

The feds may also be showing some impatience with 13 securities commission and holdout provinces such as Quebec and Alberta. Or, the feds may be signalling the reciprocal part of a quid pro quo attached to the sweetened equalization payments Ottawa gave to the provinces this year.

Regardless of motive, the budget contains an assurance, for the first time, that a single regulator will not be a federal regulator. Instead, it would be a federal/provincial body regulating a “shared jurisdiction.’’

@page_break@Securities regulation has officially been a provincial responsibility since Confederation. But Ottawa is clearly looking for a final compromise — and recognition of reality.

And in the environmental section, there is a mention of the need for carbon emissions trading. No plan for action against climate change can work without a compelling reason for the private sector to buy in, of course.

But don’t expect emissions trading to happen anytime soon. That will come, Ottawa says, when there is a regulatory structure.

So, that begs the question: will that come before or after there is a national securities regulator? IE