NDP Leader Jack Layton is refusing to rule out a coalition government with Stéphane Dion's Liberals if that's what it takes to oust Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Blasting Harper on everything from the environmental damage in the Alberta tar sands to the war in Afghanistan, Layton said this morning it's time to move Canada in a different direction.

Asked on CTV's Canada AM if he would "entertain even the notion of entering into a coalition with the Liberals in order to get the Conservatives out of power," the New Democrat stressed he's never allowed partisanship to trump the greater public good.

"Well, you know what, I've worked with any other party. I think people have seen that if they look back to my days on a municipal council," said Layton, a former Toronto councillor and one-time president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

"You roll up your sleeves and you try to solve a problem," he said.

"I think right now the problem we have is Stephen Harper and his Conservatives. They're taking the country down the wrong path. They're much too close to a (U.S. President) George Bush style foreign policy when it comes to the war in my view."

Pressed on whether he would move toward some sort of formal arrangement with Dion if the Liberal and NDP seat tally is greater than that of the Tories after Oct. 14, Layton was more coy.

"I think what I'll do is hopefully sit down in the Prime Minister's office and pull together the leadership of my party and say: 'how can we best serve the country? How can we best get that childcare program we committed to? How can we best get those doctors and nurses trained and deal with these wait times?'"

While the New Democrats have been accused of propping up Harper's Conservatives and indeed help topple former prime minister Paul Martin's Liberals by triggering the Jan. 23, 2006 election, Layton's attacks on Dion are infrequent.

Instead, he has been targeting Harper over their foreign and domestic policy differences.

Repeating his pledge to immediately withdraw Canadian troops from Afghanistan, he said it's time "to chart a new course."

"We've seen soldiers' deaths up, civilian deaths up, (opium) poppy production up, corruption is up. More of the country is too dangerous now to even provide aid or development," he said.

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"Let's use the instruments of the U.N. that we created to reduce conflict, let's have a coordinated and comprehensive approach," he said.

On the home front, Layton pledged to reinstate the cuts to arts funding by the Conservatives and then increase such programs to boost economic development.

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