Canadians vote Monday as Harper asks for majority

[May 02, 2011]  TORONTO (AP) -- Canadians began voting Monday, a day after Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a final appeal for a "strong, stable, Conservative majority government" and warned he could be toppled by a leftist coalition if he doesn't get it.

Harper, in power since 2006, has won two elections but never with a majority of Parliament's 308 seats. If he doesn't get it this time, the opposition parties are expected to try to form a coalition government.

Until last week, most polls indicated Canadian voters would give the Conservative government another mandate. Instead, Canada's political landscape may be redrawn and Harper could be out of a job if polls are right in predicting a late surge for the left.

The unexpected gains for the New Democratic Party have upended previous soundings that predicted the Conservatives would get enough votes for a minority mandate -- or even win a majority.

Now a new scenario has emerged in which the New Democrats and the Liberals together win enough seats to form a New Democrat-led coalition.

"We can change the government. We're not just going to oppose Mr. Harper, we're going to replace him," said New Democrat leader Jack Layton, whose party has socialist roots.

Polls show the race has tightened between the Conservatives and the New Democrats, something no one predicted just weeks ago.

Ekos, a private polling company, gave the Conservatives 34.6 percent, the New Democrats 31.4 per cent and the Liberals 20.4. The pollsters said they questioned 3,268 people and gave a margin of error of 1.7 percentage points. A series of other polls have reported similar results.

"It's a complete shocker," Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto said of what's been dubbed the "orange wave" of New Democrat support. Orange is the party's color. "It really is quite remarkable. You could never tell in the first weeks that this would happen."

The New Democrats' gains are being attributed to Layton's strong performance in the debates, a folksy, upbeat message and a desire by the French-speakers in Quebec, the second most populous province, for a new face.

Layton favors higher taxes and more social spending. He has been a critic of Alberta's oil sands sector, the world's second largest oil reserves but a major polluter. Canada is the No. 1 source of oil for the U.S.

The campaign started out looking like a straight battle between Harper and the Liberals' Michael Ignatieff, with 60-year-old Layton recovering from prostate cancer and a broken hip. His party was scoring just 14 percent to 18 percent in polls. Now, he's way up in the polls and a photo of him wearing a Montreal Canadiens jersey and pouring a beer during the hockey playoffs has gone viral in Quebec

Harper, 52, is a career politician who has spent the last five years emphasizing a more conservative Canadian identity and moving Canada incrementally to the right. The Conservatives have spent the last two years attacking Michael Ignatieff, 63, a former Harvard professor who was seen as a rising political star but has been unable to overcome Conservative attacks and inspire voters.

There's a possibility the left-center vote will split between the New Democrats and Liberals, allowing Harper to eke out a majority. Harper said it would be an "enormous risk" for Canada's economy if he doesn't get a majority and said a New Democrat-led coalition would mean higher taxes and job losses.

Harper is counting on the economy to help hand him the majority. Canada has outperformed other major industrialized democracies through the financial crisis, recovering almost all the jobs lost during the recession while its banking sector remains intact.

Former colleagues of Harper say his long-term goals are to kill the image of the Liberals -- a centrist party of Jean Chretien, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau -- as the natural party of government in Canada, and to redefine what it means to be Canadian.

[Associated Press; By ROB GILLIES]

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