DRUMMONDVILLE, Q.C.–The Conservative campaign has targeted four key battleground regions in the final days of the federal election, with Leader Andrew Scheer focusing on ridings his party needs to win to have a chance at power.

Where political leaders spend the dying days of an election is often seen as an indicator for how their campaigns are faring. A leader spending time in regions and ridings they already hold could be playing defence, while a campaign focusing its efforts in hostile territory might be more optimistic, hoping to steal seats from its rivals.

Scheer appears to be doing a bit of both.

He spent Thursday and Friday in Atlantic Canada, a region swept by the Liberals in 2015, but he focused on central Nova Scotia and southwestern New Brunswick, areas with a long history of Conservative control.

From there it was Beauce, the Quebec riding that has been held by a Conservative for most of the modern party’s history. But that conservative is currently Maxime Bernier, who defected from Scheer’s team to start the People’s Party of Canada, and the Conservatives are keen to upset their former colleague.

After an evening rally in Drummondville — a former Bloc stronghold currently held by the NDP — Scheer was scheduled to fly back to Toronto to make one final push in the GTA’s vote-rich suburbs. Scheer is expected to use the final day of the campaign rallying support in British Columbia before casting his ballot in Regina, where the Conservatives will hold their election night rally.

With the Conservatives and Liberals deadlocked in the polls and a hung parliament the most likely scenario after Monday’s vote, Scheer has shifted his message to warn of a possible coalition government between the NDP and Liberals.

In Fredericton, Scheer claimed the Liberals and New Democrats would hike the federal sales tax to pay for their platforms — a claim both Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh categorically denied.

A GST hike does not appear in either the Liberal or NDP platforms, which have been fully costed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer. But Scheer told a crowd of party faithful that the two parties would have to hike sales taxes or drastically cut social transfers to provinces to pay for their spending plans.

“To pay for even half of these never-ending deficits, the Trudeau-NDP coalition would have to raise the GST from five per cent to 7.5 per cent, or cut completely the Canada Social Transfer to the provinces,” Scheer said.

When challenged by reporters, who pointed out that neither party has suggested such a measure, Scheer doubled down, suggesting just because his claim is not based on his opponents’ platforms doesn’t mean they won’t do it.

“It’s not misinformation at all,” he said. “The excuse that it’s not in their platform? Well, Justin Trudeau did a lot of things that’s not in his platform,” Scheer said.

Speaking in Whitby, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said categorically that Scheer’s assertion was false.

“Those claims are entirely untrue. It is unfortunate that Conservatives keep having to make up attacks against us,” Trudeau said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

At a campaign stop in Port Alberni, B.C., NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Scheer “lied” when he said New Democrats would raise the federal sales tax.

“It’s completely false. We’ve never spoken about that. It’s not in any of our engagements,” Singh said in French, before accidentally accusing Trudeau of lying when he switched to English.

Amid laughter, Singh continued, “Sorry. That might be true as well but let me be clear: Mr. Scheer is just making stuff up because he's getting desperate.”

With files from Alex Ballingall

Read more about: