Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives set the stage for their first parliamentary survival test on Friday, but the threatened political showdown that could lead to an early election appeared to be losing steam.
The pre-election fever eased a notch yesterday when the New Democrats suggested they might be willing to back the government – thus averting a vote of non-confidence in the Commons – because of new help for laid-off workers being proposed by the Conservatives.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his party remain committed to voting out Harper and forcing an election at the earliest opportunity.
But the Conservatives, who hold 143 of the Commons' 308 seats, need only one of the other three parties to vote with the government to avoid being toppled in a confidence vote. The Liberals have 77 seats, the NDP, 36, and the Bloc Québécois, 48. (There is one Independent and three vacancies.)
NDP Leader Jack Layton signalled his party might prop up the Conservative minority after Human Resources Minister Diane Finley used yesterday's return of MPs to Ottawa to reveal additional help for laid-off workers.
"The announcement today appears to be a step in the right direction," Layton said in a prepared statement. "There is much more that needs to be done as well.
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