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Toronto: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is gambling that an opposition push for an unpopular carbon tax to curb global warming will steer Canadian voters to the right in Tuesday's election and bolster his hold on power.
If the polls are any indication, though, Canada's third national ballot in just over four years will give the country yet another minority government.
Harper's Conservatives did not win an outright majority in the 308-seat parliament in the 2006 election. As a minority government, the Conservatives had to rely on the opposition to pass budgets and legislation.
In the 2006 election, opponents painted him as a right-winger who would reshape the landscape like a US-style Republican.
"Just because someone's a Conservative doesn't mean he's George Bush," Harper told voters in Quebec last Saturday.
The opposition Liberals have traditionally been the party in power in Canada, forming the government for more than two-thirds of the past 100 years. Analysts say Harper is intent on destroying the Liberal brand and wants to instill conservative values in Canada.
Harper hurt himself when he said during a debate that Canadians were not concerned about their jobs or their mortgages. Days later, he said stocks were cheap.
Canada's main stock exchange then had its worst week in almost 70 years.
Harper has since tried to undo the damage by saying he knows Canadians are concerned about the economy.
Last Sunday, he contrasted Canada's economic and fiscal performance with the more dire situation in the US.
"Americans are running deficits. We're running surpluses. Americans are incurring debt. We're paying down debt," Harper said. "We have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years ... We have a better economic situation than the United States because, for two and a half years, we have made better choices."
Recent polls show Harper is rebounding. A Harris-Decima poll put voter support for Conservatives at 35 per cent, followed by the Liberals at 26 per cent and the New Democrats at 18 per cent. The Bloc Quebecois was at 10 per cent and the Green party had 9 per cent. The left-of-centre vote is divided among four parties, which may allow Harper to win a majority government even with less than 40 per cent of the overall vote.
The poll results represented 1,284 interviews conducted last Wednesday through Saturday with a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
Tom Flanagan, a former campaign director for Harper and a political scientist at the University of Calgary, said the uptick for the Conservatives in recent days shows that Canadians had second thoughts about Liberal leader Stephane Dion as prime minister.
"I don't know how else you would explain this sudden turnaround," Flanagan said.
Dion is a former professor from the French-speaking province of Quebec whose struggles to communicate in English have become a major issue.
He has moved his party to the crowded left by staking his leadership on a "Green Shift" tax plan. Dion, a former environment minister who named his dog Kyoto after the Japanese site of the first climate change accord, wants to introduce a carbon tax on all fossil fuels except gasoline.
Profile
Stephen Harper, 49
- Prime minister since his Conservatives - which dominate in Canada's Western regions - won a minority government in the January 23, 2006 election.
- Started off as a legislator for the Western-based right-wing Reform party between 1993 and 1997 but quit after policy differences with the party leadership.
- His stiff manner is often the butt of jokes. He is an avid ice hockey fan and is writing a history of the game.
Stephane Dion, 53
- Surprise win in the December 2006 Liberal leadership race, beating more experienced candidates with a platform that stressed the need to protect the environment.
- Served as federal environment minister in the Liberal government from July 2004 to February 2006.
- Served as Liberal minister of intergovernmental affairs from 1996 to 2003, where he was best known for his battles with Quebec separatists.
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