OTTAWA, Dec 4: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, battling to stay in power, persuaded the country’s acting head of state on Thursday to suspend parliament so that he could avoid being ousted by opposition parties next week.

In an unprecedented move, Governor General Michaelle Jean the representative of Queen Elizabeth, the head of state — agreed to shut down the House of Commons until Jan 26.Harper, who had already promised to present a budget for Jan 27, called on opposition legislators to work with him over the next few weeks to tackle the growing global financial crisis.

“Today’s decision will give us an opportunity — and I’m talking about all the parties — to focus on the economy and to work together,” he told reporters after meeting Jean, saying all parties were responsible for the current crisis.

The Canadian dollar rose 1 per cent against the US dollar on the news.

Harper’s Conservatives won a strengthened minority in an election on Oct. 14 but are now hanging on for dear life. They had been facing a confidence vote in Parliament on Monday that they would almost certainly have lost.

The opposition Liberals and New Democrats, who have signed a deal to defeat Harper and form a coalition government, said they still plan to defeat him. They are backed by the Bloc Quebecois, which wants to break up Canada by gaining independence for French-speaking Quebec.

“We can’t trust him ... it’s a sad day,” New Democrat leader Jack Layton told reporters, saying Harper has locked the doors of parliament.

“You can run but you can’t hide,” said Liberal legislator Bob Rae, predicting the opposition would bring down Harper early next year over the budget.

Harper’s gambit was the latest development in a constitutional crisis that erupted last week after he tried to cut public financing for political parties, a move that would have hit the opposition parties particularly hard.

The opposition parties also say they are angry because Ottawa has not dealt adequately with the economic crisis.

Both sides vowed to take their campaign to Canadians over the next six weeks.

Harper’s request was unprecedented because no prime minister had ever asked for parliament to be suspended so soon after an election, and no prime minister had asked for a suspension to avoid a confidence vote in parliament.

Harper went on national television on Wednesday evening to denounce the Liberals and New Democrats.

“At a time like this, a coalition with separatists cannot help Canada,” Harper said. In his comments on Thursday he was more conciliatory toward the opposition.

Conservative legislators openly say the opposition members of Parliament are trying to mount a coup and one suggested they were traitors.

“This is the worst time for Canada that I have seen,” New Democrat legislator Thomas Mulcair said before the suspension was announced.

Media organizations say they are receiving an unprecedented number of comments from Canadians. While many people are unhappy with the idea of Bloc support for a government, others condemn Harper for triggering the crisis.

“Whether he contrives an exit from his immediate travails over the confidence vote, the Harper era appears to be approaching the end. But before that happens, there is a danger Canadian unity will be harmed,” the influential Globe and Mail newspaper said in its lead editorial on Thursday.

The Conservatives have launched a full-scale campaign to demonize what they call “the separatist coalition”.

An early sign that their pressure might be working came on Wednesday, when Liberal legislator Frank Valeriote told the Guelph Mercury newspaper that he wanted to work with Harper to deal with the economy rather than joining a coalition.

—Reuters