Canada Conservatives buoyed by polls expected to trigger election

Montreal ­ As Canadians brace for an imminent call for elections by the governing Conservatives, the North American nation's sputtering economy, the environment and Arctic sovereignty are emerging as key themes.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, buoyed by polls showing that the minority Conservatives are finally within reach of forming the long- coveted majority in Parliament, is expected to call a federal election any day this week. If he moves to dissolve the Parliament before Sunday, Canadians would go to polls on October 14.

For weeks Harper has argued that new elections are the only way to fix the increasingly dysfunctional" Parliament.

His party won power in January 2006 and have run one of the longest-serving minority governments in Canadian history by building ad hoc alliances with opposition parties.

Their main rival, the Liberal Party led by Stephane Dion, has kept the Conservatives in power in recent months by abstaining on key legislation. Broke and still smarting from a bruising leadership struggle, the Liberals propped up the Tories in order to gain time to recuperate and regroup, but recently Liberals began to hint they were finally ready to bring down the government this fall.

Observers say Harper decided to carry out a pre-emptive strike and call an election at a time of his choosing before Canada's slowing economy grinds to a stop in a full-blown recession.

During a tense meeting with Dion on Monday, Harper demanded guarantees that the Liberals would either support or abstain from opposing the Conservative legislative agenda in Parliament. As expected the Liberals would have none of that.

Never would a minority government receive from an opposition party a blank cheque. And he knows that," Dion told reporters after his meeting with Harper.

In recent days Harper had held similar meetings with leaders of the separatist Bloc Quebecois and socialist New Democratic Party. Both opposition leaders came out of the meetings convinced he is about to call an election.

And a Strategic Counsel survey showing the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals for the first time in months is likely to add even more impetus for early elections.

The survey, published by the Globe and Mail newspaper and CTV News Monday, showed the Tories with support of 37 per cent of voters, well ahead of the 29 per cent support for the Liberals. That puts the Tories within striking distance of a parliamentary majority, which given Canadas political landscape can be achieved with about 40 per cent support of the voters. (dpa)

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