Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he is confident that "the big red tent will hold" on election day, despite slipping to third place in the polls and a declaration by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the choice for Canadians at the ballot box is between the Conservatives and the New Democrats.
Ignatieff said although his party has dropped five percentage points since the campaign began while the NDP has surged to a close second behind the Tories, he is buoyed by strong turnout at his campaign rallies, as well as near-record campaign fundraising.
"I'm very confident the big red tent will hold on the second of May," Ignatieff told CTV's Question Period on Sunday, the last day of campaigning for party leaders. "We've got another couple of days. It's extremely important to get the Liberal vote out and I'm absolutely convinced the Liberal vote will show on the second of May."
Despite Ignatieff's optimism, Harper said Sunday the so-called "orange crush," as the NDP surge has been dubbed, means that Canadians are facing a choice Monday between the Tories and the New Democrats, not the Grits.
"Look, we say it's a Conservative government now or an NDP government," Harper told Question Period. "It's about keeping the economy on the right track or experimenting with NDP economic policy, which would be disastrous. And the only way now for Canadians to make sure that's not what happens is to have a Conservative majority government, so I'm confident and I continue to urge it."
When asked if he would reach out to the Liberals for support in the House of Commons should he win another minority mandate and the NDP form the opposition, Harper said his minority governments have always needed the support of at least one opposition party to get initiatives through.
But he quickly attacked the Liberals for what he said was a shift to the left with a platform Harper said more closely resembles that of the NDP, and urged fiscally conservative Liberals to look to the Tories when they cast their ballots.
"I think there are a lot of people who traditionally voted Liberal who do not agree with where their party has gone in this election. Their party has essentially gone to a carbon copy of the NDP platform. That is not what a lot of Liberals believe about the economy," Harper said.
"And we're urging those Liberals, now that the choice is a Conservative government or an NDP government, and the only way to ensure a Conservative government is a majority government, we're urging those people to back our strong record on the economy and our low-tax policies."
Ignatieff also went on the attack Sunday, criticizing Harper's campaign strategy to stick to scripted comments during rallies and limit the number of questions journalists can ask to five.
Ignatieff dismissed Harper's warnings of an NDP or a coalition government as the "politics of fear that Mr. Harper has run on" through the campaign.
"Vote for me or the sky will fall. That's the sum and substance of the Conservative platform," Ignatieff said. "Canadians are fed up with being bullied and intimidated and told to be afraid of something. They want to vote for something optimistic and hopeful…My sense is on the second of May, people are going to choose hope over fear. Mr. Harper has not earned another government, and he can't intimate and bully people into giving him another government."
But Harper maintained his position Sunday that his party is the "closest to the mainstream views of this country" and appealed to voters to consider giving him a stronger mandate this time around.
"All the other parties have gone off, way off on an economic direction that Canadians don't support and I think Canadians understand is increasingly risky," Harper said. "It's a nice thing to talk about the NDP as a protest vote, but when you're looking at that kind of economic policy every serious commentator and analyst in this country thinks would be disastrous, I don't think Canadians want that."
