OTTAWA—Canada’s marathon election campaign is in its final sprint with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper seeking to prop up support against a buoyant Liberal campaign as NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair fights to keep his party in the running.

And on Monday, the Liberals rolled out a charm offensive, the Tories resorted to game-show gimmicks and the New Democrats touted parliamentary math, all to win over voters.

Harper took to using wads of cash and sound effects to highlight the tax hikes he said Canadians would face under a Liberal government.

During a campaign event in Waterloo, a local supporter dropped dollar bills on a table to the sounds of a ringing cash register, meant to highlight what Liberal changes to tax-free savings accounts, income splitting and child care benefits would cost families, Harper said.

“These aren’t just numbers in a pamphlet. We’re talking about real dollars that the Liberal party is proposing to take from families if they are elected,” Harper said.

But Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau rejected the claims, saying that Harper is “misleading Canadians with untruths” because he is “desperate” to steer voters away from the Liberal alternative.

He reiterated his plan for a middle-class tax cut, saying it would be the first legislation a Liberal government would put before Parliament. The Liberals have promised to reduce income taxes for middle-income earners, a plan that would put more money in the pockets of nine out of 10 families, Trudeau said.

Mulcair turned aside questions about his party’s third-place standing in some polls and confidently declared that New Democrats — not Liberals — are the ones who will beat Conservatives in ridings across the country.

And to make his point, he turned to parliamentary standings, noting that the NDP, which had 95 seats when Parliament was dissolved, is better positioned than the Liberals, which had 36.

“After so many years of Conservative and Liberal failures, after so many years of Conservative and Liberal scandals, Canadians are ready for change,” Mulcair said during a stop in Maple Ridge, B.C.

“There is only one way to make it happen. The NDP needs just 35 more seats to defeat the Conservatives,” Mulcair said.

“The Liberals simply can’t do it. They need over 100 seats,” he said.

Mulcair is referring to 35 Conservative-held seats that the NDP hope to steal away, victories that could put them in the driver’s seat of a minority government — but only if they keep the seats they already have.

Harper was also dismissive of polls that have the Conservatives in second place.

“Polls don’t decide the election. Voters do. Do voters really want to replace benefits they have with a bunch of deficits?” he said.

An upbeat Trudeau, whose party has climbed into first place in some polls a week before election day, told an overflow crowd at an Ottawa riding that “we are on the verge of something special.”

And he made a pointed pitch to progressive Conservatives, saying the party led by Harper no longer speaks for Canadians who “want what’s best for their country.

“Conservatives are our neighbours, our cousins, our parents. We don’t need to convince them to leave the Conservative party. We need to show them how Stephen Harper’s party has left them,” he told supporters.

“This prime minister has played wedge politics for a decade, and divided Canadians over differences of religion and citizenship,” Trudeau remarked in the riding of Nepean, which was cut out of a riding that went Conservative in 2011.

He accused Harper of fear-mongering and fostering politics “at its worst.

“A prime minister should never try to win votes by pitting Canadians against each other,” he said.

In a shift in strategy as voting day nears, Trudeau campaigned Monday in Ontario ridings that have favoured Conservatives in recent years. The aim is to attract centre-right voters who are tired of Harper and favour a change of government. On Thanksgiving morning, hundreds of people lined up in a shopping mall parking lot, trying to squeeze into Trudeau’s event.

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“I’ve talked with conservatives across the county and they keep telling me that they no longer see their values reflected in this government. It’s time for a change,” said Trudeau, who enjoyed enthusiastic turnouts in Napanee and Port Hope later in the day.

His handlers are buoyed by polls that show the Liberals continuing to move upward, and are hoping to augment their support by attracting discontented “red Tories” and New Democrats who might see the Liberals as the best way to defeat the Conservatives.

The party leaders head into final days with evidence that voters are taking a keen interest in the campaign. Advance polls were open all weekend and Elections Canada reported that some 1.6 million voters cast ballots on Friday and Saturday, a 34 per cent first two days of advance polls in the 2011 election.