加拿大华人论坛 加拿大留学移民Canada has become a more conservative nation?

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Sat Sep 13, 6:18 PM By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press OTTAWA - Stephen Harper contended Saturday that Canadians have become more conservative while his rivals slammed the prime minister for trying to remake the country in his own right-wing image. Harper launched the ideological debate in Fredericton, N.B., where he remarked that Canadians had come to embrace "small-c" conservative values since he got into politics. He also said his Conservative party has simultaneously shifted more to the centre of the political spectrum and he warned that it must remain there if it wants to continue governing. "I think the Canadian public has become more conservative," Harper said at the start of a weekend swing through Atlantic Canada. "At the same time, I don't want to say the Canadian public is overwhelmingly conservative or that it is necessarily as conservative as everybody in our party. "And that means that our party has to make sure that it continues to govern in the interests of the broad majority of the population. That means not only that we want to pull Canadians towards conservatism but Conservatives also have to move towards Canadians if they want to continue governing." Harper's comments appeared to be aimed at dispelling opposition accusations that he harbours a hidden, extreme right-wing agenda. And it was consistent with the message the Tories have been hammering home in television ads throughout the opening week of the campaign: Harper is a moderate, steady leader who's in tune with mainstream Canadians. But Liberal Leader Stephane Dion interpreted the prime minister's message as proof of a hidden agenda. "He said today, if I'm not wrong, he said that Canada's not conservative enough to his taste," Dion said in Richmond, B.C., where he announced $800 million over four years to help streamline and modernize the immigration system. "So I want to ask him, how far is he more right wing than Canadians? What is his hidden agenda?" Nor was Jack Layton buying Harper's makeover. At an enthusiastic rally in Toronto, the NDP leader painted Harper as a heartless puppet of big corporations who has no interest in the needs of ordinary working families. Harper, who was first elected as a Reform MP in 1993, recalled that Canada was still debating the merits of balanced budgets and free trade when he entered politics. Liberal governments abandoned their anti-free trade rhetoric and traditional big-spending, high-taxing ways in the 1990s, adopting conservative principles of deficit reduction, spending restraint and tax cuts, he said. "I think there's been a tremendous change in that regard." Until now, at any rate. Harper said the Liberals and other opposition parties have returned during the current election campaign to "a pre-free trade, Cold War kind of approach to the economy . . . where they want to spend money, they don't care how they finance it, if they have to raise taxes, that's fine. "This is not where the Canadian public is in this day and age." Canadians now celebrate the military as well as the medicare and the CBC as sources of national pride, Harper said. But he confined himself primarily to economic issues in making his argument that the country has shifted to the right. He did not address the social side of the equation - issues such as capital punishment, abortion and same-sex marriage - where Conservatives have often found themselves out of step with mainstream views. Harper has resolutely tried to mute social conservatives within his party's ranks. Dion pointed out that Harper once called Canada a socialist backwater and, until recently, denied that climate change was a problem. He said Harper's attempts to sing a different, more progressive tune now is "not sincere." "In my opinion, this man has objectives that are much more right wing than what Canadians want," he said. Dion also took issue with Harper's contention that fiscal prudence is a conservative attribute. He noted that the nation's treasury, overflowing with surpluses under the previous Liberal regime, is now teetering on the brink of deficit and that the once robust economy has "hit a brick wall." In Toronto, Layton told about 400 party faithful that an NDP government would focus on the needs of families "at the kitchen table" rather than Harper's fixation on corporate executives at the boardroom table. "Do you want a prime minister who'll have us choke on dirty air because he can't get the oil out of the tarsands fast enough?" said Layton, who has borrowed liberally from the playbook of U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. "Do you want a prime minister who helps his CEO friends get richer while millions of Canadian children and their families live in poverty? Do you want a prime minister who broke his promise to end health care wait times while five million Canadians don't have a doctor?" Earlier, Harper promised to help small businesses with modest tax cuts, including indexing the lifetime capital-gains exemption and increase the amount of income eligible for the reduced small-business tax rate to $500,000. The measures would save small business owners $220 million over four years, he said. The Liberals got off to a slower start in Richmond, B.C., where Dion unveiled a $800-million package to help new Canadians and reduce the 900,000-backlog of immigrant applications. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/indepth/fed_election/s/capress/080913/national/fedelxn_main

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所谓命运,就是你什么也没做..仍是错...直到看见这世间闪烁万千灯火,超越梦里所有想象....回复: Canada has become a more conservative nation?Harper will get out of classroom soon!

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回复: Canada has become a more conservative nation?感觉以后的移民政策会越来越严啊。目前保守党的政策在加拿大很有市场，感觉民众对于保守党的政策比较认可啊！！！BAD NEWS！

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回复: Canada has become a more conservative nation?哈珀要连任了，9月最新的民意调查哈珀领先很多。10月就要大选了。Bad News

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