Single and widowed seniors can expect new tax relief under a re-elected Conservative government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in North Vancouver Tuesday morning.

Harper pledged to create a $2,000 single seniors tax credit that he said would extend additional annual tax relief to nearly 1.6 million single and widowed seniors in Canada.

Harper made the announcement at an ice rink in North Vancouver flanked by Mike Little, the Conservative candidate in the riding of Burnaby North-Seymour. This is a new riding where polls suggest Little is in for a tough fight against the NDP’s Carol Baird Ellan, a former provincial court judge, and SFU professor Lynne Quarmby, who is running for the Greens. High-tech start-up CEO Terry Beech is running for the Liberals.

The North Vancouver side of the new riding is where the Conservatives got more votes in 2011 and there were many seniors in the audience of between 100 and 200 who turned out Tuesday. Some held signs that said “Protect Our Economy.”

Harper said the new measures are needed because when seniors are widowed, they often lose access to some of the benefits claimed by the deceased spouse.

“This is an important and … affordable commitment,” he said.

Harper also used a question about whether it was a good idea to run a surplus when the Canadian economy is in recession to take a partisan stab at Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, suggesting that province is in a recession in part due to the policies of her NDP government.

“I’m in British Columbia. There is no recession in British Columbia. There has been no recession in British Columbia. I’m going later today to Alberta, where there is a recession and we know why there’s a recession. It’s not because the government ran a $2 billion surplus. There’s a recession because oil prices have fallen by half. And the recession has been made worse because the NDP government came in and followed that by raising taxes on everybody.”

Harper also hit on familiar Conservative themes of global economic turmoil, which he repeated later in Pitt Meadows. Wearing a sweatshirt with Canada written on the front, Harper advised a huge crowd of supporters, who also waved signs that said “protect our economy,” that the Conservatives were the best bet to weather the “fragile economy” in these “dangerous” times.

“This is a call to action to protect our economy, to protect our country,” he said. “Make no mistake, the global instability is a serious risk for Canada and for B.C.”

Calling Canada an “island of stability,” Harper told the crowd that the Conservatives had created 1.3 million jobs since the financial crisis and planned to create one million more over the next four years. But the small budget surplus the government announced Monday, he added, shows that only a re-elected Tory government can stay the course economically.

Backed by Conservative candidates from around the Fraser Valley, including Abbotsford, Cloverdale-Langley and Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon, Harper also fired up his supporters, who cheered and chanted “Canada, Canada,” by promising to ensure marijuana isn’t sold in stores like alcohol and tobacco, to remain part of the mission against ISIS, and to crack down on “real crime.”

tcarman@vancouversun.com

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