SAANICH, B.C. - Don't use this C-word around Stephen Harper.
The prime minister continued Monday to deflect questions about the contempt motion that brought down his minority government and made it the first in history to be found in breach of Parliament.
During a news conference in a quiet Vancouver Island subdivision, Harper said the only issue Canadians care about is the economy and its continued recovery.
Harper was asked if his refusal to acknowledge the contempt ruling is an indication of how he would govern should his party be returned to power.
"On the question of contempt, the only contempt in this election is the idea that Mr. Ignatieff's opposition can lose the election and form a government without an electoral mandate, with the support of the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois," he replied in French.
Harper did not use the word "contempt" in his English remarks.
"In terms of democratic outrage, the only democratic outrage in this election is the idea of Mr. Ignatieff that he can lose the election and get a mandate to govern, not from Canadians in an election but in a backroom deal of the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois," he said.
Harper came under renewed questioning about what he was trying to accomplish in 2004 when he wrote to the Governor General urging her to consider "all the options" should then-prime minister Paul Martin dissolve Parliament.
Harper was asked directly at the time -- at a news conference in which he was flanked by the NDP and Bloc leaders -- to what extent they were asking the Governor General to allow the three opposition parties to form government.
"That would be extremely hypothetical," Harper said back then. "I would not want the prime minister to think that he could simply fail in the House of Commons as a route to another general election, that's not the way our system works."
On Sunday, Senator Marjory Lebreton told reporters travelling with Harper that, in general, one of the options open to the Governor General in the Westminster parliamentary system should a government fall is to ask the next biggest party in the Commons to seek the confidence of the House.
Technically, the Governor General also has the power to reject a prime minister's request to dissolve Parliament, as happened during the King-Byng affair of the 1920s.
Both NDP Leader Jack Layton and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had said that having the Tories form government was precisely one of the options Harper was focused on at the time. But Harper dismissed that Monday.
"I do deny it, just as Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe denied it at the time themselves," Harper said. "What was the option, the option was very clear, it was the option we did, which was as opposition leader I was seeking to put pressure on the government to influence its agenda without bringing it down, without defeating it and replacing it."
Harper's tour continued to focus on ridings the party hopes to pick up in its quest for a majority. In Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca on Vancouver Island, the departure of popular Liberal MP Keith Martin presents an opportunity for three-time Tory candidate Troy DeSouza.
The Conservative campaign was to stop in Edmonton later Monday, where they are seeking to oust New Democrat MP Linda Duncan from the single riding the Tories don't hold in the province.
