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OTTAWA: Canadian voters go to the polls Tuesday for a third election in four years, becoming the first G7 nation to cast ballots since the start of a global financial meltdown.
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his main rival Liberal leader Stephane Dion set off Monday on nationwide blitzes to firm up support and woo many still undecided voters in the dying hours of the campaign.
Harper is predicted to win his second mandate since January 2006, with the latest polls placing him at five percentage points ahead of Dion.
But with one-third of Canadians still uncertain of their intentions, and three other mainstream parties nipping at the front-runner's heels, a Conservative victory is by no means assured.
"In this election, ours is the only party running on a strong record and a clear plan... that in the midst of this world financial crisis have kept our economy creating jobs, kept our budget balanced and kept your bank accounts safe and secure," Harper said at his first whistle stop in the town of Cornwall, Prince Edward Island.
He urged supporters to push hard to the finish line: "We need every vote we can get."
"In this close election, there is no guarantee we will win," Harper said, before flying to Fredericton in easternmost Canada and ending his day in Vancouver on the Pacific Coast.
Dion meanwhile called on voters to "stop Stephen Harper," saying the incumbent prime minister "has no plan" to safeguard Canada's economy from the worldwide woes provoked by a collapse in the US subprime mortgage market.
"We have a plan to create jobs, to ensure that we are doing all we can in these tough economic times to protect our pensions, our savings, our mortgages, and our jobs," he said in Fredericton.
"If we come together, if we pull our votes together, we will win this election," Dion said, planning to also take his message to Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
In an interview with the Toronto Sun, Harper said he would step down if he does not win this election. But he hoped for a minority government, he told broadcaster CTV.
If Dion slips, the Liberals are said to be more likely to trample him than help him up to fight another election campaign.
Early on, Harper had hoped to usher in a new conservative era in Canadian politics while the centrist Liberals tracked left to counter him.
The Canadian election was cast as a colossal struggle between right and left, and a possible bellwether for a November contest in the United States between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
But in the last 10 days, focus shifted to global financial troubles, and Harper lost his early 10-point lead.
Rivals accused Harper of glossing over Canadians' fears of US economic carnage splattering this country, despite his and his finance minister's efforts to reassure them, and "not to panic."
They attacked Harper's "stay the course" campaign, and for saying in a recent television interview that plunging stock markets presented good buying opportunities for investors.
Harper shot back, saying the Liberals's plan for the largest tax shift in recent Canadian history, massively cutting income and corporate taxes to offset a new pollution tax, was too risky in "uncertain economic times."
Thus, Harper reclaimed a slight lead.
Amid the politicking, the Toronto Stock Exchange took its worst beating in almost 70 years, and a leading Canadian bank predicted a recession in 2009.
Canada's economy has actually fared better than that of other Group of Seven industrialised nations, and unlike places like the United States, its banks are not in danger of insolvency.
But some 75 per cent of Canadian exports go south to its neighbour and biggest trading partner, and when the US economy stumbled in 1975, 1982 and 1991, so too did Canada's economy.
Analysts noted Harper also faced a resurgence of the separatist Bloc Quebecois in this election, likely dashing his hopes for more seats in Quebec, while Dion seemed to have failed to woo anti-Conservative votes from the leftist New Democrats or the nascent Green Party.
Nearing the finish line, support for both the Conservatives (33 per cent) and the Liberals (28 per cent) is actually down two percentage points from the last election in 2006, according to the Strategic Counsel.
"The winner of this election is stumbling over the finish line after a pretty uninspiring race," the polling firm's Peter Donolo told CTV. "Two main parties are really underperforming."
- AFP/yb
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