Harper rallies troops during local visit

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told local supporters on Friday night that voting for anyone other than a Conservative candidate in the next federal election would be akin to approving a coalition government.

Make no mistake, he said at a campaign-style rally at the Victoria Inn, casting a ballot for NDP MPs Bruce Hyer and John Rafferty would help ensure the opposition would immediately hijack Parliament following the vote.

Harper said his government isn’t seeking an election and Canadians don’t want one, but Conservatives shouldn’t be under any illusion and should be ready to fight for their political lives because the opposition parties can and likely will force one sooner than later in a blatant grab for power, he suggested.

The worst-case scenario, Harper said, would be a Parliament whose majority members are Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois representatives.

“And if that happens, my friends, they are going to form a coalition government the very next day, regardless of what they tell you during the election campaign. They tried it last time. They waited too long,” Harper said, pressing the crowd to instead help elect a Conservative majority.

He then went on the attack, calling out Rafferty and Hyer for siding with the coalition in 2008, when Harper was forced to prorogue Parliament to avoid an attempted opposition takeover.

“What did they do? The first thing they did when they went to Ottawa after the election, they signed a deal with the Bloc Quebecois to govern this country. The people of Thunder Bay, of Northern Ontario, of this province and of this country never voted for that and they are never going to vote for that.”

Harper said the Conservative vision has led the country out of the recession with its financial ledger held high, but warned the opposition could shatter the economic calm through higher taxes and outdated trade policies.

“I’m often reminded that centuries ago there were people, I think they were called alchemists, and they literally spent centuries trying to figure out how you could turn lead into gold. When I look at the opposition, I think they’re spending all their time trying to figure out how to turn gold into lead,” Harper said.

Harper said the Canadian government has done the opposite in Thunder Bay though it’s $4-billion Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, contributing to a variety of projects, businesses and institutions, including Abitibi-Bowater, Lakehead University, the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute and Genesis Genomics.

They’ve also spent to make repairs to federal buildings and Fort William Stadium, and contributed funds to build the new Mary J. Black library and Prince Arthur’s Landing at Marina Park.

“These are good investments. These are necessary investments. These investments will be good for the people of Thunder Bay, and, the NDP voted against every one of them, ladies and gentlemen. Now, of course, they try to take credit for them,” Harper said, urging the crowd to cast their next ballot in favour of his two local candidates, Nipigon Mayor Richard Harvey, running in Thunder Bay-Superior North, and newcomer Maureen Comuzzi-Stehmann, seeking Rafferty’s seat in Thunder Bay-Rainy River.

Harper warned that massive government debt in advanced countries, combined with high unemployment in the United States, means the economic risk is far from over.

He said while world leaders at the recent G-20 Summit pledged to cut deficits in half by 2013 and government debt ratios stabilized by 2016.
Canada will be well ahead of the curve, he went on to say.

Harper, who stressed his party’s commitment to improving the country’s justice system, said it’s become all too clear that the opposition has other priorities.

“We’ve been out saying who the criminal justice system should be going after – violent offenders, pedophiles, dangerous offenders. That’s who we think it should be going after,” he said.

“The other guys have a different view and say we should be going after people who don’t fill out the long-form census. And of course their favourite target, rural Canadians, farmers, duck hunters (and) Aboriginal people.”

Harper used this as a segue to say his party will keep fighting until the long-gun registry is abolished. A vote to keep it is scheduled for Parliament next week. Both Hyer and Rafferty have repeatedly said they will side with the Conservatives, against the wishes of NDP Leader Jack Layton, and vote to end the registry.

Other topics Harper broached included his push for an elected senate and stronger immigration reform.