OTTAWA — Stephen Harper has used nearly every campaign speech to warn about what his opponents might do if he only gets a minority government — but don’t ask what he might do.
The prime minister insists his opponents will bring him down on a confidence vote, ask the Governor General to give them power, and then proceed to wreck the economy.
But would he try working with other parties — including compromising on his budget — to get their support as he occasionally has in the past?
Harper’s news conference Wednesday was dominated by such questions. He sidestepped each one, shrugging off queries about compromise and responding with his central message: only a Harper majority government separates Canada from economic disaster.
“I don’t accept the question,” Harper replied to one reporter 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.”
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said the prime minister’s response shows why he was defeated in a non-confidence motion last month: an inability to play well with others. The opposition toppled the Tories after finding the government in contempt for failing to share details about the cost of its agenda.
“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 has ruled out a formal coalition with the NDP or Bloc Quebecois. But he pointed out that, under the Constitution, any party leader can seek to obtain the confidence of the House of Commons and form a government. The Tories have leaped on such remarks as proof he intends to take power even if he loses the election.
Those attacks forced Ignatieff to strenuously deny, once again, that he planned to form a coalition: “No. No. I repeat, no,” he said Wednesday.
The spat came as a new poll suggested both of the biggest party leaders lagged far behind the NDP’s Jack Layton in personal popularity.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey did hold some good news for the Liberal leader: it said Ignatieff has regained the personal popularity ratings he held in early 2009, when the Conservatives began pounding him with a barrage of attack ads.
It said Ignatieff had tied the prime minister after seeing his personal popularity spike in recent days, while the prime minister’s had fallen.
Pollsters watch leadership scores closely, as they often foreshadow changes in general voting intentions. In this election, the Liberals have trailed the Conservatives throughout the campaign.
The Liberal leader was viewed favourably by 42 per cent of respondents and negatively by 50 per cent — roughly the same levels recorded by Harper, who was viewed favourably by 43 per cent and unfavourably by 52 per cent.
Layton was viewed favourably by 68 per cent of respondents, and unfavourably by just 26 per cent.
The poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted April 14-17 and is considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
With just 12 days left before voters casts their ballots on May 2, federal party leaders were exercising some precision campaigning Wednesday while fighting off increasingly bitter attacks from their rivals.
Ignatieff was down east trying to recover two former Liberal ridings from the Conservatives.
Harper hit some francophone ridings in eastern Quebec and New Brunswick, among them one held by the Bloc Quebecois, another by the Liberals.
And Layton visited the Tory town of Essex, Ont., before travelling to NDP country in Thunder Bay, Ont., a day after Ignatieff dropped in looking to steal the ridings from him.
The other hot topic for Harper on Wednesday — aside from a hypothetical minority Parliament — was an allegation of interference in a government appointment.
Media reports said Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, pushed for the Port of Montreal to have Robert Abdallah, a former director-general at Montreal City Hall, appointed as its chairman. The port eventually chose another candidate, Patrice Pelletier.
The prime minister said, “it’s not unusual,” for the government to express its preference for a certain candidate and it respects the decision to appoint someone else. The NDP, however, called for a public inquiry.