Lori Paris reports on the unveiling of the Conservative platform

With just a week to go before Election Day, Stephen Harper has finally unveiled the Conservative party platform.

With the struggling economy at the forefront of the campaign, Stephen Harper insists that the Conservatives are focused on Canada's future financial stability, as opposed to the opposition parties, who are looking at the immediate problems.

"Prudent leadership does not set economic strategy for the nightly news or rewrite plans for the morning papers," Harper told supporters at the Sheraton Centre.

"You don't shift long-term plans for short-term considerations."

While most of the Conservative platform has already been released piecemeal throughout the election campaign, Harper made two new promises as he unveiled the platform: 200 million each over four years to innovation programs for the aerospace and automotive sectors, as well as a promise to eliminate tariffs on a wide range of imported equipment for a saving to manufacturers of $345 million.

He also promised more to come.

"We are pursuing a new national Science and Technology Strategy focussed on successfully commercializing research and development, In fact, I will announce another specific, large project in this area before the campaign is over."

But the economy, and the financial crisis took the forefront, with Harper telling Canadians to stay the course.

"As the saying goes, ‘it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.' Which is why, when the rain came, Noah didn't need to panic and he didn't switch boats."

Harper told the crowd of supporters that his platform has a fully implemented cost of three billion dollars a year, as compared to the opposition parties whose promises come at a cost of almost ten times that amount. Harper says with those price tags, the government would have to immediately raise taxes and run a deficit.

"It shows that the platforms of the opposition parties are written for an economic fantasyland; a place where money grows on trees, debts don't have to be paid back, and taxes are good for the economy."