TORONTO -- Jack Layton finished his final campaign sprint through Hamilton and Toronto yesterday in a last dash to scoop up disenchanted Liberal votes and paint several long-held Grit ridings NDP orange.

Finishing the 56-day-long campaign with several whistle-stops ending in his own Toronto-Danforth constituency yesterday, Layton blazed through Hamilton and five Toronto ridings that his party believes could flip from Liberal to New Democrat in today's election.

With polls and pundits predicting Canadians will elect a Tory minority, Layton told 400 party workers and volunteers that only the NDP can keep the Tories in check.

"Unfortunately it has become clear that Paul Martin and his team are not cut from the same cloth as Lester Pearson or Pierre Trudeau," Layton said. "And so, most Canadians think it's time for a change."

The NDP leader pitched his party as "optimistic" change opposed to the change of conservativism that he said rewards profitable banks and large corporations with more tax breaks.

"They're about dimes and dollars," Layton said of Stephen Harper's Tories. "A few dimes to you in tax cuts. Many, many dollars to banks and oil companies."

Layton did keep the door open for negotiations with the Tories if the NDP hold the balance of power in the House of Commons. "Every member of Parliament has been sent there by Canadians, and that decision should be respected, and that member of Parliament should be respected," said Layton.

During the campaign, he laid out four conditions for the New Democrats' support in the House: the protection of public, single-payer health care; continued backing of the Kyoto accord; independence from U.S. foreign military policy; and maintaining civil and equality rights measures.

Layton's last-minute cross-Canada push reflects public-opinion polling that projects his party winning as many as 43 seats compared to its current holding of 19.

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