NDP Leader Jack Layton was back in Quebec Saturday, hoping to build on surging popularity in the polls with an appeal to voters in the riding of Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.
Layton held a rally in Duceppe's downtown Montreal riding, which the Bloc leader has held since 1990. A decade ago, the NDP finished fifth in the riding behind the Marijuana and Green parties.
About 1,000 supporters, billed as the party's biggest-ever Quebec rally, gathered to hear Layton speak "in the town where I was born."
"Something is going on in Quebec -- a wind of change, change that you can feel blowing all along the St. Lawrence River," Layton told the crowd.
The rally followed poll numbers that show the New Democrats have double the amount of support from Quebec voters compared to those who cast their ballots for the party in 2008.
While the NDP's surge is resulting in greater media scrutiny about platform pledges, it's also prompting political attacks from rivals. The Conservatives and the Liberals have both launched new attacks on the NDP.
In Halifax, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff accused Layton and his party being impractical and lacking credibility.
"Mr. Layton has got a platform which, when you look at it closely, has $30-billion in spending, which we think is not going to be good for the economy, and he derives it from sources we just don't think are credible.
"It's time to take a close look at what Jack Layton is saying to the Canadian people," Ignatieff said. "The numbers add up, and up, and up and up."
Though he began his day in the east, Ignatieff arrived in Toronto later Saturday wrapped up his day at an Easter service.
Meanwhile, Liberal strategists are attempting to stem any defection of left-leaning supporters to the NDP, with Quebec emerging as a major battleground.
Duceppe takes battle to Twitter
The Bloc, too, is ganging up on the NDP. But earlier Saturday, Layton dismissed attacks by Bloc candidates who have suggested he cannot speak for Quebec voters in Parliament.
Layton also shrugged off the campaigns against him as a sign of progress for his party.
"This is not the first time people have put a target on my back," Layton said. "But I can bob and weave as well as anybody else. . . I take it as a compliment."
Layton's improving outlook in Quebec appears to have rattled Duceppe, who took to his Twitter account Saturday appealing to voters by claiming, "This election is a battle ... between Canada and Quebec."
That tweet was later deleted and another sent out issuing a direct appeal to sovereigntist voters.
"This election is not a left-right battle, but a battle between federalists and sovereigntists," said the later message. "Between the parties of the Canadian majority and Quebec."
Harper, Ignatieff, target GTA voters
With the May 2 voting day fast approaching, the leaders also zeroed in on the Toronto area, with its dozens of seats in Parliament.
Harper reached out to voters in the so-called 905 region of the GTA, delivering a speech in Mississauga on religious freedom that promised to create an office to monitor religious persecution abroad.
Harper explained that the Office of Religious Freedom would be part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and would monitor religious freedom around the world and promote religious freedom as a key objective of Canadian foreign policy.
But the event did not go off without controversy. When reporters travelling with Harper on the campaign trail started asking questions about the endorsement of a Tory candidate by a man linked to the Air India bombing, partisan supporters drowned out the journalists with loud and sustained applause.
There were also questions at the event about a Conservative candidate in east Toronto, who had previously spoken out in support of the Tamil Tigers during radio interviews. Ragavan (Gavan) Paranchothy has since issued a statement denouncing the Tigers.
After the event in Mississauga, Harper was scheduled to travel to Campbell River, B.C.
Liberals, Conservatives launch attack ads aimed at NDP
In what appears to be a response to a surge in NDP support, particularly in Quebec, the Liberals released an attack ad Saturday that took direct aim at the New Democrats' platform.
The ad accuses the NDP of opting not to support the gun registry during the campaign, of running inexperienced candidates and introducing $70 billion in new spending "they can't possibly pay for."
"After 26 years as a career politician, shouldn't Jack Layton know better," the female narrator asks.
Over a series of flashing yellow traffic lights, the narrator says: "The NDP: Evasion on gun control and chaos on the economy. Higher Taxes. No real team."
A red traffic light then pops up as the narrator concludes: "Uh uh, not so fast Jack."
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have once again brought out the "coalition" buzzword, which they used repeatedly against Ignatieff during the first days of the campaign.
This time, however, grainy television images show Layton shaking hands with the Bloc leader, accusing the pair of having a deal to take power. "He did it before, he'll do it again. And Canada will pay the price," says a foreboding voice during the commercial.
The latest poll numbers from Nanos Research, compiled for CTV and The Globe and Mail, indicate the NDP and the Liberals are in a statistical tie as the parties round the corner into the last week of the campaign.
Accounting for the margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points in this latest survey's national results, the 26.1 per cent who said they support the Liberals and the 23.7 per cent who back the NDP put the two parties in a neck-and-neck race for second place.
Still, Harper's Conservatives continue to sit 12 percentage points ahead of their closest rivals, at 37.8 per cent nationally.
With files from The Canadian Press
