Canadian election: Stephen Harper steps up effort in Ontario

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper has sought to shore up support against front-running rival Justin Trudeau in the battleground province of Ontario as Canada’s election campaign enters its final week.

Mr Harper, hoping to become the first leader in more than a century to win a fourth straight term, must win several key districts in the nation’s most populous province in order to prevent losing power to the surging Liberal Party.

The latest polls show Mr Trudeau’s team has taken a clear lead, breaking a weeks-long deadlock. Mr Harper is spending the next few days in suburban Toronto districts and southwestern Ontario cities such as Kitchener, a region to which he owes his rise to power and where data suggest the Conservatives are vulnerable.

To counter Mr Trudeau’s gathering momentum the Conservatives have started warning Canadians what might happen if he wins. “The choice we make next Monday will have real consequences and the wrong decisions in Ottawa on taxes, on spending on deficits, will have real consequences for families, for seniors, for all Canadians everywhere,” Mr Harper said at an event in Waterloo, Ontario. “That’s why, for our Conservative Party, protecting our economy is our number one priority.”

Mr Trudeau's Liberals lead with 36 per cent of the vote, polling by Nanos Research for CTV and the Globe and Mail shows. Mr Harper's Conservatives are at 29 per cent and Tom Mulcair's NDP at 24 per cent, Nanos found.

Mr Trudeau has in particular built a lead in vote-rich Ontario, where he stands at 45 per cent, followed by 33 per cent for the Conservatives and 18 per cent for the New Democrats.

The polls suggest no party will have enough support to win a majority in parliament and any government will require the support of other parties to stay in power. A minority Liberal government is the most probable outcome. – (Bloomberg)