BADDECK, N.S.—Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says the NDP will stand for “no darn principles” if leader Jack Layton and the New Democrats fail to support the long-gun registry in a crucial vote this fall in Parliament.

In a speech to open the Liberals’ big, summer-end retreat at this scenic resort in Nova Scotia, Ignatieff turned his fire on the New Democrats, urging Layton to rally his party fully behind the gun registry that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government wants to dismantle.

Quoting a man he spoke to recently in Manitoba, Ignatieff said: “The problem with the NDP, know what it means? Know what it stands for? No darn principles . . . On this gun registry stuff, they’ve got to step up or they’ve got no darn principles.”

The Liberal leader has lined up his entire caucus to vote for keeping the long-gun registry when the Conservative private members’ bill to abolish it comes up for a vote in the House on Sept. 22. Ignatieff has managed to get all his dissenting MPs on side with a compromise bid to decriminalize any offences for failing to register long guns.

But on Monday, Layton said he was treating it as a free vote, meaning that his 12 New Democrat MPs who voted against the registry last time will probably do so again.

The Liberals obviously intend to use the next month to ratchet up the pressure on Layton and the NDP — putting the onus on the New Democrats to face the choice of propping up Harper’s Conservatives this fall.

This was what Ignatieff tried to do at last summer’s caucus retreat as well, when he said that Harper’s “time was up” in government and that Liberals would no longer prop up the Conservatives in power.

The idea last year was to put pressure on the NDP and the Bloc to choose whether to plunge Canada into a general election campaign. But the strategy backfired when Liberals opponents painted the move as over-eagerness by Ignatieff to send Canadians to the polls.

Ignatieff is not talking election at this summer’s gathering in Baddeck, though he did say at the end of his speech Monday night that “it is time to change this government.”

But he said this is the message that he’s sending to all disaffected Conservatives, New Democrats, Greens and Bloc Quebecois supporters — part of his oft-repeated “come on into the big red tent” appeal to cast the Liberals as the grand coalition of the centre in the next election, whenever it comes.

For the past eight weeks, Ignatieff has logged roughly 40,000 kilometres travelling across Canada as part of the so-called “Liberal Express” tour of the country. The tour itself was in part preparation for an election campaign, but Ignatieff told the Star in an interview last week that the party is more interested in the “long game” right now.

Spirits appear to be high among MPs and partisans converging on Baddeck for this week’s retreat. MPs, who were largely responsible for pulling out the crowds to meet Ignatieff on his tour stops, say they’re basking in the general, favourable reception to the Liberal Express and the improved mood and performance of their leader.

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