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Stephen Harper used some of his most specific language to date Monday in saying a re-elected Conservative government would not reopen the debate over the country's abortion law because there are too many other important issues to deal with.

“We have a lot of challenges in front of the country,” Mr. Harper said during an announcement about arts and fitness funding for children. “We have a difficult world economy, as we all know. That has to be the focus of the government and I simply have no intention of ever making the abortion question a focus of my political career.”

Mr. Harper said that while some members of his caucus, as well as some Liberals, would like him to make abortion a priority, “I have not done that in my entire political career. Don't intend to start now.”

“I have been clear throughout my entire political career I don't intend to open the abortion issue,” he said. “I haven't in the past; I'm not going to in the future.”

Mr. Harper sounded more definitive today on this issue than he has in the past. The abortion issue dogged him in the 2004 election campaign when there were questions about the Conservative Party's socially conservative beliefs.

He said then that he would not introduce legislation amending the abortion law but that Conservative MPs had a right to their own beliefs, leaving the door open for private member's bills.

After Monday's event, however, Mr. Harper's spokesman Kory Teneycke clarified in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail that Mr. Harper would tell his cabinet ministers they could not support any private member's bills that could reopen the debate.

“We can't prevent private member's bills from reaching the floor,” Mr. Teneycke said, “But the government would not support them.”

In August, just before the election was called, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced the government was abandoning support for a bill that would make it a separate offence to take the life of a fetus. Mr. Nicholson said at the time the government would not reopen the abortion debate.

The issue of restricting abortion rights does not play well in Quebec, where the Tories need to win big if they want to form a majority government. Recent polls are showing the Tories stalling in the province.