SURREY, B.C. - A planned announcement on rapid transit funding for a Vancouver suburb was suddenly postponed today as the Conservative campaign scrambled to respond to the tragic Canadian connection to the Syrian refugee crisis.
Stephen Harper was expected to pledge federal funds to assist Surrey, B.C.'s plans to build two new light rail lines to help the city's nearly half-a-million people move around the Lower Mainland each day.
It was to be a marquee pledge for the Tories, seeking to hold on to their seats in the region and also pick up some of the new ones that were created during the electoral redistribution process.
The campaign scrapped the planned speech and policy pledge as news broke that a Syrian family who drowned while trying to get to Europe had previously tried to come to Canada but were turned away.
Harper had been asked yesterday to respond to the issue of millions of people fleeing the ongoing war in Syria and struggling to find refuge around the world.
While the Conservative government has pledged to take more than 20-thousand Syrian refugees over the next four years, Harper was asked whether more could be done immediately in light of the crisis.
He responded that the issue could only be solved by stopping the war that was causing the refugee problem in the first place.
