Bloc Qu�b�cois Leader Gilles Duceppe speaks to reporters following a visit to a restaurant in Montreal.
Stephen Harper begins Day 5 of the campaign back in the Greater Toronto Area as the Conservatives hope to crack the Liberal stronghold as part of their drive for a majority government. It will be Mr. Harper's second visit to the Brampton area in three days. The Tories will rip another page from their defunct 2011 budget, re-announcing another policy that was in the shelved fiscal plan.
Later, Mr. Harper flies to Montreal, his first stop there since the campaign began. Following the Montreal, rally Mr. Harper will fly to Halifax to spend the night there.
Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal leader, is in Vancouver this morning to make an announcement on families at a pharmacy. This continues his roll-out of his campaign platform. He made a major education funding announcement Tuesday in Oakville, Ont.
Later Wednesday, he's off to Winnipeg for a town hall discussion at the Franco Manitoban Cultural Centre.
Jack Layton will search for votes in the suburban areas around Toronto today. In the morning, he will visit the auto city of Oshawa, east of Toronto, where he will make an announcement at kitchen cabinet manufacturer. The riding is held by Conservative Colin Carrie but the NDP placed second in 2008, losing by about 3,000 votes, and the party believes it has a good candidate in union rep Chris Buckley.
In the afternoon, Mr. Layton will travel to Brampton, on the other side of Toronto, where he will tour the MacDonald Dettwiler plant.
He will also will attend a rally with supporters in the riding of Bramalea Gore Malton, where Liberal incumbent Gurbax Singh Malhi beat the Conservative candidate by a little fewer than 4,000 votes in 2008 - a smaller margin than the 2006 election. It's a constituency where the NDP have been little more than also-rans.
Gilles Duceppe will spend the day in two working-class Montreal ridings. He starts out in Ahuntsic, where the Bloc Québécois incumbent, Maria Mourani, won by about 400 votes in 2008.
He also has meetings scheduled with community groups. Mr. Duceppe plans to head eastward toward Quebec City tomorrow after spending five full days in the Montreal area.
Amid the controversy over her exclusion from the leaders' debates, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May campaigns in Saanich, B.C.