Prime Minister Stephen Harper said a majority Conservative government would not move to ban abortions or gay marriage.
During a campaign stop Monday in Welland, Ont., where he renewed his commitment to abolish the long gun registry, Harper was asked if he would revisit either issue if he wins a majority.
"We will govern on the platform we are elected on," he said.
"On the other matters you mention (abortion and gay marriage), they are not in the Conservative platform. I have no intention of opening up those issues."
With a CTV/Globe and Mail poll showing the Tories with a 14-point lead over the Liberals, there's open speculation about a Conservative majority.
In the two previous elections, Conservatives have flirted with majority-type numbers in the polls, but were never able to sustain those numbers come election day.
The suspicion that the Conservatives harbour a secret agenda on social issues has plagued Harper in the past, an issue the party wants to put to bed.
Harper did not say whether he would support a private member's bill on the social issues. He voted against a private member's bill last year that would have criminalized coercing a woman into having an abortion.
Speaking in Ontario's agricultural heartland Monday, Harper renewed his commitment to abolish the long gun registry, calling the program an example of how the opposition "simply doesn't get it."
Harper said the Liberal-created program targets law-abiding hunters while doing nothing to stop criminals.
"They actually think that you can control gun crime in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver by being soft on criminals who use guns, but enforcing a long gun registry on duck hunters and farmers in rural Canada," he said during a campaign stop at a grain farm in Wainfleet, Ont.
The Conservatives are hoping to recapture the riding from New Democrat Malcolm Allen -- an MP who voted against a Conservative motion to abolish the long-gun registry, after originally supporting it.
Harper, speaking with a backdrop of supporters sitting on hay bales, blamed the failed bill on opposition parties, which he said ignored the wishes of rural voters.
"It is a question of whether or not you get it," Harper said.
"Ignatieff, the NDP and Bloc Quebecois coalition simply doesn't get it."
Harper said a majority Conservative government would make the registry's cancellation a top priority.
"Our Government has long opposed the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry," he said. "We must stop targeting law-abiding gun owners, and instead focus our resources on real criminals."
Harper said a Conservative government would also create a hunting and wildlife advisory panel that would bring "common sense" back to Ottawa, on rural issues.
Manitoba Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner, who introduced the private member's bill that would have killed the registry, said Monday the Tories are the only party committed to the move, which voters should consider come election day.
"The choice is very clear. There is only one party that supports ending the long-gun registry. That is the Conservative Party, that's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Conservative MPs," Hoeppner told CTV's Power Play. "So that's the reality for Canadians and for gun owners and their families in this election."
Hoeppner accused Halifax NDP MP Peter Stoffer, who, like Allen, initially supported her bill but changed his vote, of betraying voters in his riding.
Stoffer said despite his support for abolishing the registry, he changed his vote according to his constituents' wishes.
Stoffer said he would prefer to see changes to the registry, "but I have to answer to my constituents, and my constituents clearly asked me to maintain the registry and make some changes if possible, and that's exactly what I did."
Stoffer also suggested that the Tories could have scrapped the registry by including a provision in any of the federal budgets from 2006 to the one introduced earlier this year, but instead left the issue for election campaigns to drum up money from supporters. Hoeppner said adding the issue to a budget would have been unsuccessful in a minority government.
MPs want focus on jobs
Allen, who won the Ontario riding by a mere 300 votes in 2008, attended a Tory photo op later Monday and criticized Harper for focusing on the registry issue.
"Clearly the prime minister has come today to talk about the gun issue," Allen said. "I'm here to basically talk about what's really important to Canadians, which is jobs."
Welland has endured economic hardship in recent years, including the closing of a John Deere plant, which put 800 people out of work. Allen blamed local job losses on the Conservatives' commitment to lowering corporate taxes.
"We have watched free trade bleed this economy in the Niagara region and especially in southern Ontario and they want to give us more of that," Allen said.
Stoffer echoed Allen's comments Monday, telling Power Play that he wished the prime minister had discussed issues such as job creation in a riding with so many people out of work.
"It's interesting that Mr. Harper is in Welland, with a high unemployment rate. And the issue, I would assume, for a whole lot of those unemployed people is not just the gun registry, it's also where to get a job, how do I look after my family and things of that nature," Stoffer said. "And I wish that that was what Mr. Harper would be talking about as well."
During the Welland event, Harper was also asked about new revelations about former senior staffer Bruce Carson.
The Canadian Press revealed Monday that Carson was convicted on five counts of fraud -- three more than previously known -- and received court-ordered psychiatric treatment before coming to work as one of Harper's top advisers.
Harper said the convictions were related to events that took place long before Carson came to work for him, and that when he did he was a respected man in Ottawa.
However, Harper said it's clear the system for background checks needs to be improved.
The Conservative leader is scheduled to spend Monday night in Quebec.
