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Ottawa: Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed almost certain on Friday to call a general election this week to decide who will guide Canada through a rough economic patch, and an aide pointed to October 14 as a likely date.
The Conservative leader, who has headed one of the longest minority governments in Canadian history, sees September 2 to 7 as the most likely window to call for a vote, the aide said.
Harper is formally asking whether any of the three opposition parties will cooperate with him through the autumn, but his party has already booked a campaign plane, launched television advertisements and outlined its broad themes.
"I think his plan is made. He wants an election. Period," Gilles Duceppe, leader of the separatist opposition Bloc Quebecois, told reporters after meeting Harper.
Harper, whose government won power in January 2006, was to meet Jack Layton, leader of the leftist New Democratic Party, yesterday though Layton has called the exercise a charade.
Liberal leader Stephane Dion has said he is available to meet only on September 9.
The prime minister did not, under such circumstances, feel obliged to wait for a meeting with Dion to call an election, said the official, who did not want to be identified.
Harper's government needs the support of at least one opposition party to get Bills passed, and he has complained about legislation being stalled in the Liberal-dominated Senate and obstructed in the House of Commons, principally by Dion.
Before US election
Some pundits have suggested that Harper might want to get the Canadian vote out the way before the US presidential election, to avoid the possibility that a victory by Democrat Barack Obama might have coattail effects for Dion.
If an election were called, Harper will campaign on providing certainty versus what he calls Dion's risky approach, particularly after the economy barely skirted two quarters of contraction - the common definition of a recession.
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