Harper continues to blame oil prices for economic challenges

TORONTO — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is portraying the NDP as a danger to the economy and says the Liberals are out to raise taxes.
On the morning after the first televised leaders’ debate of the campaign, Harper used a suburban park as a backdrop as he promoted his government’s newly enriched universal child care benefit.
Harper says that benefit will be at risk should Justin Trudeau and his Liberals take power.
And he says Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats are “dangerous on economic issues.”
But when asked about his apparent admission during Thursday night’s debate that Canada is in a recession, Harper refused to reprise the remark.
“Eighty per cent of the economy is healthy and growing; we have a contraction in the energy sector that everybody knows is because of low oil prices,” he said.
“The question is, what do you do? We say you stick on the low-tax plan that has had us as world leaders in terms of jobs and growth over the long haul, and we’ll continue to do so.”
The prime minister was flanked by moms and toddlers as he spoke about the Conservative child care benefit, which provides families with $160 a month per child up to age six and $60 per month for children aged six to 17.
He scoffed at the NDP’s plan to introduce a $15-a-day daycare program, saying that was all well for bureaucrats and daycare lobbyists, but not for families.
That is part of a misguided ideology, he said.
“NDP ideas would wreck Canada’s economy, just like they once wrecked Ontario’s economy and the economy in so many other places where they’ve been tried.”
He slammed the Liberals, too.
“Justin Trudeau’s pitch is this: he will cut your taxes, but only if first he gets to raise your taxes. That’s what every tax-hiking politician says.”
As for his performance in Thursday’s debate, Harper would only say that he “felt very good” about it, “But look, I’ll leave it to the pundits to do their own analysis.”