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The Conservatives will be spending more time focusing on the NDP, a sign that party leader Jack Layton's strategy of avoiding the Liberals on the campaign trail seems to be working.

A Tory campaign spokesperson confirmed to Â鶹ӰÊÓ that Conservative Leader Stephen Harper will be spending more time responding to attacks from the NDP and the Greens.

Unlike previous election campaigns, Layton has ratcheted up his attacks on the Conservatives and is ignoring his left-of-centre rivals.

But the NDP aren't the only party ignoring the Liberals on the campaign trail. New Conservative ads launched in Quebec and skipping over the Grits and attacking the Bloc Quebecois.

The latest Tory ads, which were launched by Quebec MP and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon at a press conference late Sunday morning, focus primarily on the Bloc Quebecois and its leader Gilles Duceppe.

"What we're doing is putting forward a message ... that asks the Bloc Quebecois, come forward, and tell us what they have done over the last 18 years," Cannon said.

When a reporter asked Cannon why the Tory ad campaign in Quebec didn't appear to be attacking Duceppe in the same mocking manner that their ads have attacked Dion, he said, "campaigning in Quebec has always been different."

CTV's parliamentary correspondent Graham Richardson said the ads show that the Conservatives think it's a two-way race in Quebec.

"What's interesting is that the Conservative ad doesn't even mention the Liberals, which is a bad sign for the Liberals in Quebec," he told Â鶹ӰÊÓnet.

Since taking office in 2006, Harper has made a concerted effort to make inroads into Quebec, which has been a traditional battleground between the Liberals and Conservatives for nationalist voters.

This election, the NDP is also hoping to make gains in the province. They had a surprise win in a Montreal-area byelection last fall, giving the party their only Quebec MP.

Grits release ads

The Liberals also released a new set of ads in Quebec over the weekend.

The Liberals released three new French-language TV ads on Saturday night in Quebec, attacking alleged negative campaigning by the Tories.

Building on the theme "Together, everything is possible," the ads aim to highlight the differences between Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and Conservative Leader Harper.

Some of the ads feature Dion, Liberal Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff, Ontario MP Bob Rae, and Quebec MP Denis Coderre criticizing Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's leadership style. One features ordinary Quebecers who say they are concerned about the Conservative Party's negative advertising.

"The new ads were produced to focus on the concerns that Quebecers have raised regarding the increasingly negative tone of Mr. Harper's election campaign," said a Liberal Party press release.

"No campaign thus far had exposed (Quebecers) to such personal attacks against a political leader or featured as negative a tone as the one set by Mr. Harper and his staff in the first week of this election."

Antonia Maioni of McGill University said that the Liberal ads are focused on reestablishing their traditional strength in Montreal.

"They are focused on getting the urban vote to keep on voting Liberal," she told Â鶹ӰÊÓnet.

But she said that while the Liberal ads talk about leadership, they barely show Dion - a sign of his unpopularity in the province.

"Stephane Dion is really nailing the party to the ground," she said. "They could come in third in Quebec."