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The possibility of a fall federal election grew Thursday as Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a thinly veiled threat to orchestrate his own government's demise, said he would soon decide how to end the “chaos” plaguing Parliament.

While in Newfoundland for a funding announcement, Mr. Harper blamed the Liberals for the federal legislature's “dysfunctional” state, saying the problems were so bad a quick resolution was necessary.

“I think, quite frankly, I'm going to have to make a judgment in the next little while as to whether or not this Parliament can function productively,” Mr. Harper said before taking aim at Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

“Mr. Dion says he doesn't support the government but won't say whether he will defeat us or not. I don't think that's a tenable situation.”

Mr. Harper did not elaborate on how he would restore order in Parliament, nor did he acknowledge that members of his own party have played a role in creating chaos by ignoring summonses to testify at hearings into the Tory “in and out” financing scheme.

But his comments were interpreted as a threat to trigger an election by claiming he has lost the confidence of Parliament.

Liberal justice critic Dominic LeBlanc said Mr. Harper's posturing makes a mockery of a Conservative-sponsored law that set a fixed date for Canada's next federal election – October, 2009.

“I don't underestimate the prime minister's hypocrisy at all,” Mr. LeBlanc said in an interview. “This is the prime minister who made a virtue of passing fixed-election date legislation, and now he's threatening to cross Sussex Drive and go see his neighbour, the Governor General, and ask for an election because he's fabricating a crisis where none exists.”

Mr. Harper's latest sabre-rattling reinforces comments he made two weeks ago, when he dared Mr. Dion to “fish or cut bait” and decide whether to defeat the minority government.

The election speculation comes as a poll released Thursday suggested that most Canadians preferred the Conservatives over the Liberals when it comes to leadership and most major issues.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey of 1,000 respondents says 43 per cent of those surveyed believed the Tories, with Mr. Harper at the helm, have the best leader to be prime minister. Only 22 per cent of those polled picked the Dion-led Liberals.

New Democrat Leader Jack Layton used Mr. Harper's comments as an opportunity to invite the Liberals to pull the plug on the government.

“It's time has come,” Mr. Layton said. “A major part of whatever is dysfunctional is coming from the government side. He is choosing to cover over that, which is another reason why people don't trust Mr. Harper.”

Later in the day during a stop near Fredericton, Mr. Harper took aim at Mr. Dion's pledge to cut carbon emissions by implementing a carbon tax, picking up on a theme that several Conservative cabinet ministers had highlighted during public appearances in recent days.

“We are going to make sure that Atlantic Canadians are not tricked into voting for a carbon tax that would damage the region,” Mr. Harper said. “It would hurt families here, it would hurt industries here.”

Mr. Harper's two-day visit to Newfoundland was intended to shore up support in province where he was labelled persona non grata after a feud erupted with Premier Danny Williams over the province's ability to retain revenues from its offshore oil sector.

That conflict has yet to be settled and Mr. Williams has encouraged the province's voters to vote “anybody but Conservative” in the next federal election.

The two leaders did not meet during Mr. Harper's visit to the province.

In Cupids, about an hour's drive from St. John's, a lone protester showed up at Mr. Harper's low-key announcement, wielding a sign reading, “Harper Lied,” referring to Ottawa's decision to change the federal equalization formula. Police escorted him away.