OTTAWA (Reuters) - The opposition is set to bring down the minority Liberal government on November 28 and force a January election, Conservative leader Stephen Harper said on Wednesday.
Harper said he would prefer to move earlier but would stick to a timetable agreed on Sunday with the two smaller opposition parties.
Under that arrangement, the opposition will team up in Parliament to ask Prime Minister Paul Martin to dissolve Parliament in January and set a February election, and then proceed to topple the government if Martin refuses.
"The agreement is that if the prime minister has not clearly agreed, solemnly committed, to call the election in January then a non-confidence (motion) would go ahead on the Thursday (November 24)," Harper told reporters.
He said the vote in Parliament on such a motion would be expected to be delayed to Monday, November 28. The election campaign would normally begin the next day, with a date expected to be set on January 9, 16, or some subsequent Monday.
Martin still has one parliamentary tactic he could use to delay an election, however. He could "prorogue" Parliament, interrupting its session indefinitely and blocking any confidence motions as well as any legislation.
That strategy was seen as a risky long shot, though Martin refused to explicitly rule it out.
"I'm not going to respond to every rumor. I made it very clear that I am here to govern," he said, shortly before leaving for South Korea for an Asia-Pacific summit.
"I am going to continue to govern until such time as in fact a non-confidence motion is passed by the opposition and the government falls," Martin said.
Harper said that if Martin did interrupt the parliamentary session, he would be seen to be running from the voters.
A senior Liberal source said such a strategy would be very unlikely because it would prevent Parliament from approving supplementary government spending. If the government does not fall, a vote on that spending is scheduled for December 8.
Martin, who lost his majority in Parliament in the June 2004 election, would prefer to delay the next election until April 2006 and has rejected the February election request.
Parliament will still debate the request on Thursday and vote on it on November 21, with the opposition trying to paint Martin as rigidly ignoring the will of the House of Commons.
"The Conservative Party has compromised. The Bloc Quebecois has compromised. We have compromised," the New Democratic Party's Ed Broadbent told the House of Commons.
"Is it not an example of unmitigated Liberal arrogance to say, 'either it is my way, or no way'?"
Tony Valeri, responsible for running Liberal business in the House, responded: "We either have the confidence of this chamber or we do not. If we do not, put forward a motion."
One reason the Liberals want an April election is the hope that public anger over a kickbacks scandal that involved some Liberal Party officials will have worn off. The scandal was the subject of a judicial inquiry that released its fact-finding report on November 1.
An SES poll in Wednesday's Sun newspapers put the Liberal lead in public opinion at six percentage points, enough to form a minority government again, but just half the lead the Liberals had on the eve of the scandal inquiry report.
SES put the Liberals at 34 percent, the Conservatives at 28 percent and the left-leaning New Democrats at 20 percent.
