Broadbent attacks Liberals in last news conference

Last Updated: Friday, January 20, 2006 | 12:08 PM ET

CBC News

Taking a strip off the "cynical manipulators" in the Liberal party, MP Ed Broadbent held one last news conference on Friday and encouraged Canadians to vote for the NDP.

Broadbent, who led the NDP in the 1980s and returned to politics in 2004, isn't running this time.

The Liberals, he said, don't deserve anyone's vote, and are running a campaign that he called "deeply offensive ... to all Canadians for suggesting that a vote for anyone but themselves is not progressive."

That, he said, is the "height of arrogance," and he doesn't believe it will work this time.

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The Liberals have begun trying to encourage NDP supporters to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives from winning Monday's election.

NDP Leader Jack Layton has recently turned that tactic against the Liberals, asking supporters of that party to "lend" him their votes for this election.

"NDP members across the country are out there for one thing, to persuade Canadians to vote for what they want, not for some lesser of a number of alternatives," Broadbent said. "We have a multi-party system, not a two-party system."

Broadbent said voting for the NDP is the best way to check the Conservative agenda.