Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked taxes when he took his campaign to a farm just southwest of Regina Thursday morning.
He got a warm welcome during a sweltering hot today as he made some campaign promises inside a quonset packed with conservative supporters. He says Canadians are far better off under a Conservative government.
“The average Canadian family has, due to our policies, more than six and half thousand additional dollars in their pockets every single year,” he said.
The main thrust of his speech was the benefits of the tax-free savings account (TFSA) introduced by the Conservatives six years ago. He says the program could be in jeopardy. This spring the government doubled the amount people can put into the account to $10,000 a year.
Harper says both the Liberals and the NDP would do away with it.
“We are now fighting an election against two guys who are not fans of the TFSA,” he said.
“Each of whom for their own reasons would undo the good work we have done and this is one of the important choices of this election.”
While Harper was pushing his tax plan and criticizing his opponents, he found himself on the defensive again over the Senate scandal.
The Duffy trial and what his former chief of staff Nigel Wright is saying in court is dogging Harper at most of his campaign stops.
He remains firm that he took appropriate action when he knew the facts, and that he did not know Nigel Wright was bailing Duffy out to the tune of $90,000 to cover his questionable senate spending.
“I was told Mr. Duffy was going to repay those expenses, he will explain his own story on that. And that, to my knowledge, is exactly what he did ‘til I found out otherwise. When I found out otherwise I took steps to ensure that people responsible for that were held accountable,” he said.
Harper’s Saskatchewan stop was brief and under extremely tight security. It’s his first stop in the province since he officially announced the federal election campaign a couple of weeks ago.
The same day, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau spent time in Saskatoon.