OTTAWA – Canadians already have a large coalition party to vote for in the next election – the federal Liberal party, says leader Michael Ignatieff.

“We’re the party at the centre of Canadian political life – the progressive, responsible, reforming centre,” Ignatieff told reporters on Thursday. “We’re the coalition at the centre of Canadian life.”

Ignatieff has been dogged in recent weeks by suggestions – coming from former prime minister Jean Chretien, among others – that Liberals should merge with the New Democrats and offer a coalition of the left to voters in the next election.

Ignatieff says he’s been talking to Chretien – “learning from the master,” he said -- and while he hasn’t urged the former prime minister to stop the coalition talk, Ignatieff made clear it’s not on his own to-do list.

“Jean Chretien won three majority governments. You don’t go around telling anybody of that distinction to cease and desist,” Ignatieff said. “I’ve made my position very clear on all these issues – we are working full-bore towards building that platform that’s underneath that big red tent in the centre of Canadian life. That’s the job, that’s what Jean Chretien did, that’s what I want to do, that’s what we will do.”

Moreover, Liberals have to attract more than New Democrats to the fold, Ignatieff said. Disaffected Conservatives also have to feel welcome to vote Liberal when they become disenchanted with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government too, he said.

“We have to stand in the centre, drawing people from both sides of the political spectrum.”

Ignatieff and New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton held news conferences on Thursday to mark the end of a raucous few months in Parliament and the beginning of the long, three-month summer break in Commons business.

Though both leaders acknowledged that there has been some co-operation among parties in recent days – a deal on examining Afghan-detainee documents, for instance, or limiting pardons given to former criminals – these were cast as exceptions to the general political dysfunction.

“Something’s wrong in Ottawa,” Layton said.

The NDP leader reminded reporters that Ignatieff walked away from a Liberal coalition deal with the New Democrats when he assumed power late in 2008.

Layton and Ignatieff placed a large part of the blame at Harper’s feet for the divisive climate of current federal politics, but neither appeared ready to say that a fall election was likely. Instead, opposition leaders continue to say that Canadians want this Parliament to function.

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