OTTAWA: New polling showed the former frontrunner in Canada's legislative elections could finish third over its opposition to a popular niqab ban, as political leaders squared off in a final debate Friday.
The race is still too close to call, with the rivals sparring over taxes, trade negotiations, the Syrian refugee crisis, air strikes against the Islamic State group, and upcoming Paris climate talks.
Thomas Mulcair's New Democrats jumped into the lead at the start of the race in July and held it through most of the campaign.
The party that toiled in the shadows for decades appeared set to actually unseat Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and govern for the first time in its history.
But support in its Quebec stronghold collapsed in the last weeks over the New Democrats' opposition to a niqab ban introduced by the Tories.
Justin Trudeau's Liberals, meanwhile, surged nationwide as voters looked for an alternative vehicle for change after nine years of Harper rule.
Leger and Nanos Research polls show the Liberals now in front with 32 to 34 percent support, followed by the Tories with 30 to 32 percent, and the New Democrats at 26 percent.
Friday's debate offered Mulcair another chance to sell Quebec voters on the rightness of the party's position on the niqab.
The New Democrats have called the veil, which covers all of a woman's face except the eyes, a "symbol of oppression" but defended a woman's right to wear whatever she wants.
"It's an issue that makes a lot of people uneasy and I understand that. It makes me uneasy too," Mulcair said.
"But the courts have ruled and it's no longer about what we like or don't like."
A Conservative government policy, introduced in 2011, prohibited wearing the niqab during citizenship ceremonies. But last month, a court struck down the ban.
Harper has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, and said that, if re-elected, his Tories would make it the law.
"We're an open society that espouses gender equality and showing one's face during a citizenship ceremony reflects our values," Harper said.
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