Stephen Harper's campaign tour stopped today at a Tim Hortons, where the Conservative leader shook hands with supporters before strolling behind the counter and handing out double-doubles.

"Just don't let me handle the cash," he joked.

Of course, that is exactly what Harper is asking of Canadians — to lend him once more the keys to the treasury and the trust to manage it.

For Harper, it seems, the campaign is all about cash. In Ottawa on Monday morning Harper asserted that putting the NDP or Liberals in charge of the country's finances would wreck the economy and result in thousands of dollars flying out of the pocketbooks of "hard-working Canadian families."

The Conservatives, on the other hand, Harper said, have put thousands of dollars into the pockets of those same families. The party's math says "a typical two-earner family of four will receive tax relief and increased benefits of up to $6,600 per year."

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper serves coffee to supporters at a campaign stop at a Tim Hortons in Gananoque, Ont., on Monday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

That's grocery money for a year, and it's only safe under Conservative rule, Harper told the faithful in Ottawa.

"When Liberal and NDP politicians make expensive promises, the dollars don't grow on trees, they come out of pockets of middle class families. We Conservatives are not going to go down that path," Harper said.

Families earning $120K a year called 'typical'

But who is this typical family whose pocketbook the Conservatives are defending?

The party says it's a two-income household with two children and an annual income of $120,000. That's a relatively rare family according to the statistics, or at least not a typical one.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2013 the median family income in Canada was $76,550. Among so-called "couple families" with two adults earning income, it was about $84,080. Now, that's the group closest to the hypothetical family the Conservatives discussed.

Among those couple families, Statistics Canada says roughly 40 per cent have incomes over $100,000. And only about 19 per cent have family incomes over $150,000. So somewhere in the middle — below 40 per cent and above 19 per cent — is the elusive Conservative typical family.

Harper says only the Conservatives can be trusted to help 'typical' Canadian families, which it defines as a two-income household with two children and an annual income of $120,000. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

By contrast, among lone-parent families, roughly 10 per cent — or 144,000 — have an income that exceeds $100,000. Put another way, the "typical" Conservative family earns nearly $35,920 more than the simple majority of Canadian couple families, and $43,450 more than the majority of all Canadian families.

Ontario NDP candidate Peggy Nash said the Conservative assessment is unreal. "It goes to show just how out of touch Stephen Harper has become that he thinks the typical Canadian family makes $120,000 a year," she said in a statement provided by the party.

It goes to show just how out of touch Stephen Harper has become. –Ontario NDP candidate Peggy Nash

"Stephen Harper wants income-splitting for the richest 15 per cent and Justin Trudeau is promising his maximum tax break to those who earn between $89,401 and $200,000.

"Tom Mulcair has a concrete plan for $15 a day childcare, quality jobs, and retirement security. It's up to Canadians to decide which priorities make the most sense for middle class families."

The Liberal Party, for its part, said the Conservatives are looking out for only the richest Canadians. "Their choices on income levels betray their priorities," Ontario Liberal candidate John McCallum said. "They are out of touch with reality. Their tax cuts are skewed in the direction of high-income people."

"Their base, their voters, their constituents are higher-income people."

Tories deny torquing the numbers

The Conservative Party defended its numbers Monday, saying the data comes from the federal Finance Department, which used similar numbers in the 2015 budget.

"The information used in Economic Action Plan 2015 was based on administrative tax data collected by the Canada Revenue Agency," the party said.

"The information provided by the Department of Finance is consistent with the publicly available data from Statistics Canada."

But according to Statistics Canada, the average total income for a two-earner family with children was $115,500 back in 2011. The troublesome area in this debate may lie in the difference between median and average.

The average income figure quoted by the Conservatives is a notional number based on adding together all the family income in Canada and dividing it by the numbers of families who earn it. In other words, it's an entirely theoretical construct, skewed heavily by outliers.

The median, on the other hand, is a number in the middle of the spread of actual incomes, where the same number of people earn more as earn less. It's the mid-point.

The Vanier Institute of the Family has reported on family and household finances in Canada for the past 15 years. In an assessment of income inequality in 2015, it divided Canadian families into five categories. Those families with an annual income over $93,000 were declared to be in the top quintile — that's where the Conservative typical family would be categorized.

The middle quintile was determined to be those families who earned an income that fell between $41,701 and $61,800 — or, between about half and one-third of what the Conservatives say is typical. The institute was unavailable to provide any comment for this story.