Danny Williams pumped up a Tory rally on Thursday night with a call to fight through the last days of Newfoundland and Labrador's election campaign.

More than 500 people crowded into a community centre in Mount Pearl to cheer for Williams, as well as candidates in the metropolitan St. John's area.

"Do you like the path that we're on right now?" Williams asked a cheering crowd. "And are you all prepared to stay the course of the next few years?"

The governing Tories held 34 of the house of assembly's seats heading into the campaign for Tuesday's election, though Williams has campaigned like every seat is at stake.

Williams used the rally to motivate party workers on the campaign trail, as well as to launch a new attack on Liberal Leader Gerry Reid. Williams warned that a Liberal government would be ruinous for the economy.

"A vote for Gerry Reid and a vote for a Liberal candidate is a vote for bankruptcy," said Williams, playing with a comment that Reid had made to Labrador supporters on Wednesday night.

Reid had lashed back at Williams for saying a Liberal plan for a $1-billion fund for Labrador would bankrupt the province. "Let's bankrupt it, if that's the case," Reid quipped.

Reid says his comments were not meant to be taken literally, and said he only wanted to point out that the Tories are going to bankrupt the province if they develop megaprojects like the Lower Churchill hydroelectric plants alone.

"All I was doing was making the point, how can the premier say we're going to bankrupt the province by borrowing a billion dollars, when he's prepared to go out and borrow 14 [billion dollars]?" he said.

Williams has used the PCs handling of the government's finances as a key plank in the party's re-election platform. Consolidating public-sector debts soon after taking office in 2003, Williams said the provincial treasury was nearing an annual deficit of $1 billion.

In this spring's budget, the governing Tories projected a surplus for this fiscal year of $261 million.