WINNIPEG — Prime Minister Stephen Harper was making no apologies Thursday for his choice of hockey jersey at a Winnipeg Jets playoff game the night before.
“You can’t go wrong wearing a Team Canada jersey,” Harper told reporters at an event in Winnipeg.
The PM took some heat on social media from fans upset that he wore the red-trimmed national team sweater at MTS Centre Wednesday night when almost everyone else in the sold-out crowd wore a Jets jersey or shirt as part of the ‘whiteout’.
WATCH: Prime Minister Stephen Harper explains his choice of jersey at Wednesday night’s Jets game
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Harper also paid tribute to Jets fans.
“Winnipeggers, Manitobans were just on fire,” he said.
Winnipeg is Harper’s first stop since bringing down the 2015 budget – which is balanced and full of tax cuts calculated to be popular with voters who will head to the polls in a federal election in the fall.
Harper appeared Thursday at FC Woodworks, a cabinet manufacturer on Winnipeg’s eastern outskirts, to trumpet the small business tax cuts featured in the budget.
READ MORE: By the numbers: Highlights of the 2015 budget
Harper used the appearance to defend the budget’s various tax cuts and increase in the contribution limit to Tax Free Savings Accounts, which critics have said will benefit mostly the wealthy.
“The vast majority of TFSAs are older people and people of middle and modest income,” Harper said, adding that opposition parties are ‘pro taxes.’
Harper is also due to speak Thursday evening to a gathering of Conservative Party supporters at the Victoria Inn.
READ MORE: Controversial Manitoba Tory moved from behind PM Harper at Winnipeg rally
Manitoba is a relatively safe place for Harper to kick off a pre-election tour. The Conservatives won 11 of the province’s 14 federal seats in the last election. But he may face a challenge hanging onto some of those ridings, with three incumbents not seeking reelection including Heritage Minister and St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover.
“We have every confidence that the strong riding associations they’ve created and the string of policies we’re running on will return Conservative members in those seats in the next election,” Harper said.
Joy Smith is not running again in Kildonan-St. Paul and Rod Bruinooge isn’t seeking reelection in Winnipeg South.
Harper also said the government will reveal its new greenhouse gas reduction targets next month — and they’re not likely to be the same as the ones announced in the United States.
It would be the first time in 20 years that the two countries have parted ways on the issue.
The U-S announced last month it plans to cut emissions by up to 28 per cent by 2025.
(With files from Canadian Press)
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