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Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he's willing to work with other parties after the election, but has no interest in a coalition and takes "no lessons in democracy from Stephen Harper."

Ignatieff, speaking to Â鶹´«Ã½ on Wednesday night, fired the latest salvo between the two leaders on how Canada should deal with the possibility of another minority government.

"When the Canadian people make their judgment on the second of May they can have confidence that I know the rules and I'll work with the rules to make whatever happens work,' Ignatieff said from Yarmouth, N.S. "Mr. Harper said today he wasn't prepared to work with other parties, but I'd be happy to work with the Conservatives, with the NDP, with the Bloc to make Parliament work."

"I certainly take no lessons in democracy from Stephen Harper, that's for sure," he added.

Earlier Wednesday, Harper sidestepped a question on whether he would work with the other parties if he wins a minority government.

When asked if he would make his agenda more palatable to the other parties in a minority situation -- by compromising on his budget, for example -- Harper refused to consider that as an option.

"I don't accept that question," he said in Riviere-du-Loup, Que. "The only way to avoid it (a coalition) is to follow through our popular budget. We want a mandate of the Canadian population to put this budget in action and that's what I'm pursuing in this campaign."

He warned voters they have a choice between the stability of a majority Conservative government and the uncertainty of a coalition forged by the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

Ignatieff accused Harper of scare tactics, saying he has no intention of forming a coalition. But he did say he would do what he could to form a government.

He also said the prime minister is showing why he was defeated last month -- he can't play well with others.

"What does he think he is? The king?" Ignatieff said in Saint John, N.B.

"It's 'my way or the highway,' the whole time ... He has an obligation to present a budget that has the confidence of the House of Commons... The ruthless, relentless disrespect for Parliament is why we're having an election here."

Ignatieff said he has consistently opposed the notion of a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois since the start of this election campaign.

Harper is employing a scare tactic, he said.

"He has a problem with the coalition, not myself. I've excluded a coalition from the start," Ignatieff said in French.

"I will of course work with other parties, but excluding, off the bat, a coalition."

Ignatieff dismissed the suggestion that his party would reflexively vote down the Conservative budget should Harper emerge on top come election day, explaining instead his plan to follow the letter of Canada's constitutional law.

"I want to form a government, I want to get the most seats. I then want to offer a budget to the Parliament of Canada and seek its support. If he gets more seats than me or my party then he will present a budget. And hey, you know what I do with a budget? I read it."

In a minority government, the onus is on the party with the most seats to win the support of the House of Commons. If that party cannot do that, the Governor General can ask the party that placed second in the election to attempt to form the government -- a situation which has occurred in Canada before.

Graham Fox, president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said "it is up to Parliament who gets to govern."

Fox says, however, that most Canadians are voting on the party or the party leader, not the local candidate, and that is "in stark contrast to the rules of the system."

"We elect Parliament and it is up to Parliament to decide in whom they will leave their trust and confidence to lead a government," he said.

Harper heads east

Answering reporters' questions at a campaign stop in the riding of Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup, where local Conservative incumbent Bernard Genereux beat the Bloc runner-up by less than 1,500 votes in a 2009 by-election, Harper said that choice is the one voters will confront in the ballot box come May 2.

While his Conservatives "would be honoured with any mandate from Canadians," Harper said anything short of a Tory majority would empower his political opposition.

"What the others are saying ... is they will defeat us," Harper said, referring to Ignatieff's suggestion on Tuesday that he would be willing to explore parliamentary options to forming a Liberal-led government in the event voters elect another Conservative minority.

Although Ignatieff said he would not pursue a coalition, Harper seized on the Liberal leader's comments to raise the spectre anyway. And that, Harper said, should worry voters.

"We don't know what that government will stand for, or what parts of the platform it will agree with or not agree with, but we do know the general outlines: There is no focus on the economy, there are tax hikes, and of course these parties have very dangerous and conflicting views on national unity and constitutional matters."

Canadians who want a "strong, stable, national-unity government," have no choice but to vote Conservative, he added.

Next, Harper will head for New Brunswick, where Conservatives hold six of the province's ten seats in Parliament. The Conservative leader has a stop planned in the Liberal-held riding of Madawaska-Restigouche before he continues on to Fredericton for a rally with Tory incumbent Keith Ashfield.

After that, Harper heads by plane to St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador.

In light of the latest national poll results -- which show the Conservatives with a strong lead west of the Ottawa River, but trailing or tied with the competition to the east -- Ignatieff is also focused on wooing voters in key battleground ridings throughout Atlantic Canada on Wednesday.

Following his noon-hour press conference at a pub in Saint John, N.B. -- in support of first-time federal candidate Stephen Chase's bid to reclaim the seat Tory incumbent Rodney Weston snatched from the Liberals by a margin of fewer than 500 votes in 2008 -- Ignatieff heads to Yarmouth, N.S., where the Liberals are hoping to take the hard-fought rural riding of West Nova from Conservative incumbent Greg Kerr.

NDP Leader Jack Layton continues to blaze his campaign trail away from his chief rivals, as he makes his first appearance of the day at a farm in Essex County, Ont. Buoyed by the two seats held by the NDP in nearby Windsor, the New Democrats are hoping Layton's appearance there might chip away the support for Conservative incumbent Jeff Watson.

Later Wednesday, Layton heads to Thunder Bay to throw his weight behind the two NDP incumbents hoping to hold onto their ridings in the northern Ontario city.

For his part, Gilles Duceppe continues his campaign south and east of Montreal with stops planned in Farnham, Saint-Hyacinthe and Drummondville before an evening rally in Quebec City.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May continues to work her B.C. riding.

But, while the leaders are putting their best face forward for the final push of their carefully-targeted, riding-by-riding campaign strategies, the decidedly less scripted mud-slinging is also ramping up.

Among the accusations now flying between the various camps:

A former Liberal MP now running for the NDP in Quebec has accused Le Devoir newspaper of implicating her in a gay smear campaign.

A Liberal campaign volunteer has been charged with stealing lawn signs from the Conservative candidate running in Brampton, west of Toronto. The Liberal candidate has responded with an allegation of his own: that Tories planted the signs in the volunteer's truck following an argument.

And the Liberal campaign has filed a complaint with Elections Canada over "Republican-style harassing phone calls" received by residents of ten ridings in Ontario and Manitoba. The late-night calls, they say, originate in the United States.

There are just 12 days until Canadians head to the polls on May 2.

With files from The Canadian Press