OTTAWA - NDP Leader Jack Layton's price for supporting the upcoming budget might have just gone up, in light of charges laid against four top Conservative officials over an election financing scheme.
Layton, the only opposition leader Harper has any real hope of inducing to support next month's federal budget, used strong words to describe the charges.
"(Tory officials) may well have been responsible for breaking election laws and causing unfair election results . . . You have a government that you cannot trust with our precious democracy, that's what I would boil it down to," Layton told The Canadian Press.
The Conservative officials, which include two sitting Senators, are being accused of wilfully overspending in the 2006 election that swept Prime Minister Stephen Harper to power.
"You can be sure it's going to be a major theme coming back," Layton added.
The parliamentary pot was already bubbling when Parliament broke for a one-week hiatus over allegations that International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda misrepresented how a church-based foreign aid group was rejected for federal funding.
Now it may well boil over when MPs return Monday, stunned by last week's news about the so-called "In and Out" election financing affair.
Layton insists he'll evaluate "the budget as a budget," but he suggested the other issues swirling around the Conservative government are also factors.
"The stage, of course, gets increasingly crowded with the transgressions of this government," he allows. "That's why I've said from the outset that a budget is going to have to be and involve very significant changes in direction from the Harper government.'
Layton has set out about $2 billion worth of "practical proposals" that the NDP wants included in the budget: beefing up the Canada Pension Plan and Guarantee Income Supplement, measures to increase the number of doctors, eliminating the federal sales tax on home heating fuel and reviving the home eco retro-fit program.
Harper has so far responded coolly. And, with the Tories trending up in the polls recently, he's been giving the impression of a prime minister already in the midst of an election campaign, even as he insists he doesn't want one.
He and his MPs have been fanning out across the country touting federally-funded initiatives, reinforced by a slew of government ads promoting the benefits of Harper's signature economic action plan. The Tories, meanwhile, have been bombarding the airwaves with partisan ads, most of them attacking Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.
But the spectre of his party and its top officials being dragged into court -- their first court date is March 18, just four days before the budget is expected to be introduced -- may induce Harper to try a little harder to satisfy Layton.
As NDP MP Pat Martin colourfully put it: "This could have a chill on election fever if they know that their campaign strategy might lead them to the hoosegow."
However, the charges may equally so poison the parliamentary well that it would be hard for any opposition party to support the government, regardless of the budget's contents.
Ignatieff is already referring to the charges as evidence of "electoral fraud," effectively accusing the Tories of stealing the 2006 election. And he's tying them together with the Oda affair to launch an all-out assault on the Harper government's lack of respect for democracy.
"We have the violations of the election law. We have a minister who's still in position who lied to Canadians," Ignatieff said Friday.
"Mr. Harper's making it very difficult for Parliament to work. I think the issue of the democratic deficit will loom large when the House returns."
Privately, some Tories predict it will all come down to whether Layton, who's been undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, is physically fit enough to fight a gruelling election campaign. His recent appearance on crutches, due to a microfracture in his hip, has prompted speculation that he may not be.
Layton is quick to deny his health will be a factor in the election-or-no-election equation.
"Absolutely," he says when asked if he's up to five weeks of non-stop campaigning.
"There's lots of people who have hip problems, especially once people are at my age. It's common and so it's nothing that would stop me from campaigning, that's for sure."
