NIAGARA FALLS—Stephen Harper's Conservatives must win 23 more seats in Ontario to achieve their coveted majority, a task that senior party insiders now admit is almost impossible, the Star has learned.

High-ranking sources confide that even with the collapse of Michael Ignatieff's Liberals — and NDP Leader Jack Layton's surge, which helps split the vote in many Ontario ridings — it will be very difficult to make such immense gains in Canada's most populous province.

At the dissolution of Parliament, the minority Tories held 51 of Ontario's 106 federal seats.

Party sources say the possible loss of several British Columbia ridings to the New Democrats — and others in Quebec, where Layton is surfing an orange wave — has forced them to revise their projections.

As of Thursday, they said they needed to win at least 74 seats in Ontario to achieve a majority.

“It all comes down to Ontario and we're just not there,” a source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the party's internal polling is closely guarded.

Another source confirmed the Tories' data echoes publicly available polls, such as Wednesday's Toronto Star-Angus Reid survey showing the Conservatives at 35 per cent, the New Democrats at 30 per cent and the Liberals at 22 per cent.

Nationwide, the governing party has 143 seats with two vacancies previously held by Conservatives. They must win 155 of Canada's 308 ridings for the majority that Harper insists is vital for economic stability.

Another plugged-in Tory lamented that the political dynamic is “eerily similar” to the 1990 Ontario election won by the New Democrats under Bob Rae.

“(Tory Leader Mike) Harris shook loose the votes from (Liberal Leader David) Peterson, but they all went and voted for Rae,” said the insider.

“Now Harper dusts up Iggy for a year, but the benefactor of the collapsing Liberal vote is not Harper, it's Jack,” the source said, adding there is currently no “seat matrix that gets Harper to a majority.”

While the Tories have said they can gain five seats in the Greater Toronto Area and perhaps two (Eglinton-Lawrence and York Centre) within the city limits, where they have not won since 1988, their projected tallies still fall short.

Speaking to a small group of supporters in Niagara Falls Thursday, Harper alluded to the tricky road map toward his desired majority.

“Part of what to remember in this election is there's different races in every part of the country and in every riding,” he said.

“And in every riding it is important that we continue to fight hard, that we not take everything for granted, that we get every vote out because every vote's going to count.”

The night before in St. Catharines, Harper stoked fears about a Layton-led administration by reminding Ontarians of another NDP government — at Queen's Park two decades ago.

“Get the big decisions wrong and it will take a generation to dig ourselves out,” he said.

“Those here who remember the Liberal-NDP arrangement in the 1970s, remember how it took a generation to dig ourselves back out,” Harper said, referring to the minority government from 1972-74 led by then Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau with the support of David Lewis's New Democrats.

“I don't have to remind you what it took here after an NDP government here in the province of Ontario,” he said. “You don't need that. We don't need that.”

Harper is expected hammer that message home Friday when he makes whistlestops in Kingston, Ajax and Brampton during a bus tour from Montreal to the GTA and again Saturday in Richmond Hill.

But the Tories are concerned that if they target Layton too strongly in Ontario they may inadvertently help Ignatieff — and cost themselves precious seats in the process.

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The emergence of many three-way races makes for a complex scenario on election day, insiders say.

They remain hopeful their superior get-out-the-vote organization — as well as Ontarians' concerns about what Harper calls “a ramshackle coalition led by the NDP” — will help them in the province.

However, Harper's daily plea for “a strong, stable, Conservative majority government” may be sounding more hollow in this most crucial of provinces.

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