The federal Liberals are vowing to “fight fire with fire” in response to a new Conservative ad attacking interim Liberal leader Bob Rae that will hit television screens this week.

The ad, posted to YouTube on Monday, criticizes Rae’s record when he was premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995 — a period marked by high deficits and one of the worst recessionary periods in the province’s history.

“If he couldn’t run a province, why does he think can run Canada?” says the announcer in the ad, which also claims that Rae turned Ontario into the “welfare capital of Canada.” The ad begins by stamping the word “failure” in red across Rae’s face.

On Monday, Rae defended his record as leader of the provincial NDP and as premier, compared with the Conservatives.

“I started subways; they destroyed them. I build social housing; they destroy it. I build people up; they tear them down,” Rae said. “Plus the Blue Jays won the World Series twice when I was premier.”

Liberal spokesperson Daniel Lauzon said in an email that his party will be asking Canadians to contribute financially to its response to the Tory ad — a notable departure from previous policy that saw former party leaders Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion largely ignore such attacks.

“The scale of that response will depend on how generous Canadians will be in our appeal to fight back,” Lauzon said. “In our response, we’ll fight fire with fire. They want to talk economic record? Stephen Harper took a $13-billion surplus and turned it into the biggest deficit in Canadian history ($56 billion), added $125 billion to the national debt and since he became Prime Minister, 270,000 more Canadians are out of work.”

When asked why the Conservatives are targeting Rae, who is the interim leader of the third-place party in Parliament, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said it’s clear “Rae wants to be Prime Minister.”

“He’s told us he wants to be Prime Minister and that he wants to debate his record as premier. We’re joining him in that debate,” Kenney told reporters following a speech to the Canadian Club of Toronto. “Only he can tell the Liberal Party whether in fact he intends to be the permanent leader, but he’s certainly acting like it.”

Another ad released by the Conservatives on Monday praises Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “strong leadership in challenging times” and boasts of “more jobs,” “steady growth” and a “lower deficit.”

Both ads come the same day voters went to the polls in the riding of Toronto-Danforth in a byelection to replace the late former NDP leader, Jack Layton, and just five days before the NDP chooses a new leader at a convention in Toronto.

The NDP is also preparing an ad campaign of its own to promote its new leader before that person becomes the target of attack ads from other parties.

“The party is making preparations to ensure that it is New Democrats who define the leader of the official opposition to the Canadian Public,” said NDP spokesperson Sally Housser. “We have seen what the Conservatives have done with other political party leaders in the past and we’re getting ready to hit the ground running.”