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Party leaders spoke out on Friday to criticize Tory Leader Stephen Harper for using his second scrum so far of this election campaign to attack Liberal Leader Stephane Dion for looking confused when he struggled to understand a question in English by a TV interviewer.

Mr. Harper and his campaign team seized on the interview, claiming it proves the Liberal Leader isn't up to coping with the country's economic problems.

During a radio interview in Montreal Friday, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe called Mr. Harper's comments a “low blow” that only serves to illustrate the “double standard” that endures when it comes to Canada's official languages.

Mr. Duceppe says Canadians demand that French political leaders speak English fluently, but that English-speaking leaders can get away with mangling French.

But he acknowledged that Mr. Dion should have answered the question.

"Nowadays, there is more pressure on Francophones to speak English well than there is on Anglophones to speak French well. I think there is a double standard. That being said, I believe that yesterday he had understood the question correctly, that it wasn't a language issue but a content issue. He didn't know what to say. And that is a whole other problem," Mr. Duceppe said.

NDP Leader Jack Layton also took a moment during a rally in Toronto on Friday to defend Mr. Dion.

“I suppose if I were someone who could honestly say I have never had trouble with a question, I might be able to make some kind of remark about it,” said Mr. Layton.

“This has been a long campaign, people are tired and questions are coming at you…And you know, my problem with Mr. Dion is his platform and his record of propping up Mr. Harper. I've got a big problem with that. I don't have any problem with some question that he struggled with because I've struggled with questions.”

Mr. Dion says restarts happen all the time during interviews, and Mr. Harper's reaction simply shows the Conservative Leader has no class and is trying to hide the fact that he has no plan to help the economy.

“For Mr. Harper to do his first press conference not about, not about our pensions and our economic problems, but to try again to attack me in a low-blow way said a lot about him and nothing about me,” Mr. Dion said.

On Thursday, Mr. Dion did a television interview in Halifax, in which he could not understand CTV Atlantic anchor Steve Murphy's question.

He asked three times for Mr. Murphy to repeat it – a question as to what he would have done about the economy had he been Prime Minister – and then they agreed to start again.

CTV decided to show that part of the tape. On Thursday Mr. Harper delayed a campaign plane flight and took the rare step of talking to media twice in one day in order to savage Mr. Dion over his failure to answer the question.

On Friday, Mr. Harper defended his rush to attack his Liberal rival, rejecting criticisms that he was mocking Mr. Dion's English language skills.

He told reporters during a campaign stop in Brantford, Ont., that he wants Canadians to watch the interview and judge for themselves.

He said the Liberal accusation that he was attacking Mr. Dion's language abilities is a red herring.

“If I were in the Liberal shoes today I would be trying to spin this any way I could to avoid people actually watching the interview and seeing what Mr. Dion's answer is,” Mr. Harper said.

“I think the interview speaks for itself and Canadians can watch it. The issue is Mr. Dion's response and the economy. Mr. Dion says that he has no plan for the economy other than a carbon tax. And that's what the issue is in the election.”

Week 5 of the campaign

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