Canada's Conservatives now election front-runners

Canada's opposition Conservatives became the front-runners in a major poll for the first time in more than a decade yesterday in what commentators said was a catastrophic development for Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin.

More than halfway through the 36-day campaign for the June 28 election, the focus has shifted from whether Martin's Liberals would lose their majority in Parliament to whether the Conservatives will form the next government.

"It is a catastrophe for Paul Martin," wrote commentator Denis Lessard in Friday's La Presse newspaper, which commissioned the Ekos poll along with the Toronto Star.

The poll says 33.8 percent of decided voters would support the Conservatives in an election, 30 per cent would back the Liberals, and 18.9 per cent support the leftist New Democrats.

Yesterday, Martin conceded that it would be a nail-biting race to the finish, and he acknowledged that Canada is probably heading for a minority government.

"It has been very tight for the last number of weeks. But the next two weeks are what this is all about and I'm really looking forward to it," he told journalists in Toronto.

Martin trails the Conservatives in the former Liberal stronghold of Ontario by 34 to 38 per cent and is massively behind the separatist Bloc Quebecois in the second most populous province, Quebec, 22 to 54 percent.

He started the campaign by painting Conservative leader Stephen Harper's call for deep tax cuts as a recipe for gutting public health care. He then attacked Harper's opposition to gay marriage and the opposition of many Conservatives to abortion.

Neither attack appears to have worked yet. Yesterday, Martin showcased Canada's economic success under the Liberal government in which he served as finance minister.

"There are only two parties to form a government. These two have profoundly different concepts of what the country should be," he told a meeting of women executives in Toronto.

He said Harper's plan to slash taxes and increase military spending threatened to throw Canada back to high inflation, high unemployment and dwindling international prestige.

"I know the numbers. His plan just simply doesn't add up," Martin said.

Martin took power from fellow Liberal Jean Chretien last December, and called an early election to get his own mandate, despite warnings that he was in trouble in the polls.

Liberal support - around 50 per cent at the start of the year - was slashed by a government spending scandal and then by a promise-breaking tax hike by the provincial Liberal government in Ontario. Current projections are now for a Conservative minority where they would need support from other parties for individual pieces of legislation. But if the Conservatives keep gaining ground, they might be able to govern alone.

"It's astonishing that we have a prospect of a Conservative Party majority coming into focus," Ekos pollster Andrew Sullivan said.

To try to arrest the spiral, the Martin campaign launched a series of attack ads this week including one showing the Canadian flag disintegrating under Conservative rule.

Harper has fostered an image of a bland accountant, but someone who can be trusted where Liberals cannot. He says more money for health is possible at the same time as tax cuts and he has pledged not to introduce abortion legislation.