Harper ratchets up powerful anti-terror rhetoric; just posturing, Trudeau says

Amongst many campaign promises, Stephen Harper proposed a travel ban to “places that are ground zero for terrorist activity”.

“Quebecers are exhausted of Mr. Harper and they need a new prime minister”, Trudeau said.

“The problem we have in Canada with regards to the development of our natural resources and getting new markets for them is called ‘Stephen Harper, ‘ ” Mulcair said. “They are going to terrorist training”, Harper said Monday.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is campaigning in Montreal today.

“I don’t for a moment pretend, no leader should ever believe that everything is going to go well”, Harper said.

Harper is due to deliver remarks at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Markham around 10:30 a.m. along with Jobson Easow, the Conservatives’ candidate in Markham-Thornhill.

Speaking at the Ukrainian Banquet Hall packed with Liberal supporters in the Ottawa West – Nepean riding, Trudeau focused on economic issues and empowering the middle-class, accusing both Harper and NDP leader Thomas Mulcair of “peddling false hope to hardworking people”.

Canada’s track record on climate change and the environment has been poor, Mulcair said, particularly because it is the only country to have withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol.

Harper says a re-elected Conservative government would bring in 10,000 additional religious minority refugees from Syria and Iraq, targeting refugees in the region who face persecution or the threat of extremist violence.

Harper has long insisted that Wright acted on his own and did not say anything about the transaction to him or anyone else in his office. Harper said that Canada has so far accepted 20,000 refugees from Iraq and another 2,500 from Syria.

“The numbers we’re hearing and seeing, the reaction we’re getting on the doorsteps, allow us to be incredibly optimistic about winning a clear majority of the seats in B.C.”, he said in a scrum after his speech.

But he cautioned that no amount of resettlement can solve the problem of displaced civilians in the region, saying the atrocities committed by ISIS are unprecedented.

While countries could sign up to accept “hundreds of thousands” of refugees, ISIS “will create tens of millions of refugees and victims on a monthly basis”.

“If your policy is humanitarian assistance without military support, all you’re doing is dropping aid on dead people”, Harper said.

“We were witnessing mass slaughter at an alarming lightning pace that was sweeping across the region”.