The NDP challenged Stéphane Dion's Liberals on Wednesday to oppose next week's Conservative budget, accusing the party of losing the "moral right" to call itself the official opposition while refusing to bring down Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government.

'We'll find out next week if they'll actually do anything about Harper's agenda,' NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair said at a news conference Wednesday in Ottawa.
(Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

NDP finance critic Thomas Mulcair said his party had written a letter to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty detailing its concerns with the "wrong track" the Conservatives have taken over the past two years and indicated the New Democrats would vote against the Feb. 26 budget.

Mulcair also ridiculed Dion for showing "incredible weakness" in giving indications earlier this week that his party might abstain from the budget vote, despite "boasting" in a Liberal pamphlet sent around the Ottawa area this week that the party was a "strong and principled alternative" to the Tories.

"That's what the Liberals say about themselves," Mulcair told reporters Wednesday in Ottawa. "We'll find out next week if they'll actually do anything about Harper's agenda."

Following an address to Quebec manufacturers and exporters on Monday, Dion told reporters he won't lean one way or the other on the budget until he has seen the document. 

But he added he might allow the budget to pass if it appears "acceptable or at least not too harmful for the Canadian economy."

 

Dion said his party would decide when it is appropriate to trigger an election, while also noting that an election would cost around $350 million in public expenses.

Tories 'picking winners' with tax cuts: Mulcair

But Mulcair said Dion's hint of an abstention showed he had "no credibility" remaining as an effective opposition leader.

"Given their track record over the last year, the Liberals have forfeited any moral right to be considered a credible opposition and a credible political force," Mulcair said.

The Montreal-area MP accused Flaherty and the Conservatives of "picking winners" by giving petroleum companies and big banks billions in tax breaks in last fall's mini-budget, while failing to invest in or ignoring the struggling manufacturing and forestry sectors.

In October, the Tories' mini-budget vote passed 127 to 76 in the House of Commons, with the Liberals abstaining, while both the Bloc Québécois and NDP voted against it.

Mulcair also outlined his party's key budget priorities, calling for new investment in health care, manufacturing and job creation, infrastructure, and sustainable development.