INUVIK, Northwest Territories (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who seems all but certain to call a fall election, minimized Thursday the prospect his minority Conservative government would emerge with a majority.
But the prime minister, elected in January 2006, left little doubt he believed an election was needed in order to clear the political air and give someone a new mandate.
"If we come to the irrevocable conclusion that we should have an election, it's not because we have polls that are any different than anybody else," he told reporters during a campaign-style swing through the country's Far North.
"It's because that while we've had 2-1/2 years of government, all the signs indicate that this Parliament is at the end of its usefulness."
In past campaigns, the Liberals have sought to alarm voters on the implications of a Conservative majority in Parliament, where they would not have to rely on support of another party.
Harper said the reality was that a majority government was hard for anyone to get since Parliament has four parties.
"I just believe the math. The math is such that it is extremely difficult for any political party to win a majority," said Harper, who later chiding Dion for predicting that the Liberals could win a majority.
The Liberals have been in disarray for much of the Harper mandate after the end of their 12 years in power, but Dion said they were ready if an election was called.
"We're ready, we're well-organized and we're determined to win this election," he told a news conference in Montreal.
While Harper maintains that a final decision on going to the polls has not been made, aides talk behind the scenes as if the campaign is already underway with the formality of starting the election likely within days.
The Conservatives Thursday began running television ads in advance of the campaign aimed at boosting Harper's image.
Environment Minister John Baird, discussing the ads with reporters in Inuvik, denied the warm and fuzzy tone was to counter Harper's public image as being cold. "We just want Canadians to see the guy we work with every day," he said.
MEETINGS SET
Harper has asked to meet the three opposition leaders before deciding on whether an election is needed.
He will meet Bloc Quebecois leader Duceppe in Ottawa on Friday and Jack Layton of the New Democrats a day later.
Liberal leader Stephane Dion, head of the biggest party and the only opposition leader with a realistic shot at becoming prime minister, is refusing to talk on the phone or to meet Harper before Sept. 9.
Harper's aides accuse Dion of avoiding the meeting.
Harper added a historical twist to the preelection debate, accusing Dion of being politically left of former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau at an event aimed at linking himself to former Conservative leader John Diefenbaker.
Harper's event in Inuvik was carefully staged at the same location where former Prime Minister Diefenbaker officially dedicated the government-built Arctic community in 1961.
Diefenbaker was the first sitting Canadian prime minister to visit the Far North, and Harper said his government was simply pursuing the past leader's goal of developing the region's resources and protecting Canadian sovereignty.
"To not embrace (the Arctic's) promise now, at the dawn of its ascendancy, would be to turn our backs on what it is to be Canadian," Harper told a gathering.
Harper also invoked Trudeau's name to counter Dion's comments Thursday that Canadians should be afraid of electing a right-wing Conservative government.
"I think what is interesting about Mr. Dion is that he is certainly the Liberal leader that has taken his party farthest to the left, at least since Mr. Trudeau, if not father to the left," the Harper told reporters.
Harper also announced that Canada's new heavy C$720 million ($685 million) icebreaker, expected to be commissioned in 2017, would be named in Diefenbaker's honor. It will replace an icebreaker named for former Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, who lost to Diefenbaker in 1957. (With reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Ted Kerr)
