CityVote Day 30: Layton, Ignatieff cross paths at Sikh event in Toronto

Now the action really begins.

The federal party leaders charge into the cut-and-thrust final week of the election campaign Monday after a docile day of Easter egg hunts and church services.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who needs to close a big gap with the Conservatives and beat back a resurgent NDP, declared Sunday that the campaign has just begun.

He reached out to voters with a 30-minute infomercial on television aimed at helping families gathered for Easter get “up close and personal” with him.

There’s Ignatieff the family man sharing photos, Ignatieff the man of the people taking questions at town halls, and Ignatieff the journalist covering the Balkan wars.

Conspicuously absent is Ignatieff the politician, with the Liberal leader highlighting the fact he’s not a “career politician” like Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Jack Layton.

The Liberals have been relatively stagnant in the polls over the first month of the campaign, but Ignatieff brushed off suggestions he’s not connecting with voters.

“I just think that in lots of ways, the election has just begun,” he said in Toronto. “I think we have got a week in which we choose a government … and so, I feel as we get down to final, to the May 2, this is what it’s going to come down to: who do you trust to govern the country?”

Unfortunately for Ignatieff — if you believe some recent polls — an increasing number of voters trust Layton. At least one poll had the NDP within three percentage points of the Liberals.

Ignatieff and other party leaders have set their sights on Layton, unleashing new attack ads and saying big-budget campaign promises are based on invented revenues.

The NDP leader started the day Sunday with a church service in Toronto, joining members at the front of the church to sing the Hallelujah chorus. He later crossed paths with Ignatieff at a Khalsa Day parade, a huge affair that draws tens of thousands of Sikhs celebrating the birth of their religion.

Harper spent Easter Sunday in British Columbia with pair of campaign events in Victoria and Vancouver where the Conservatives are eager to hold on to vulnerable ridings.

The prime minister reannounced a children’s arts tax credit — for the fourth time by some media counts — at a suburban home on a Victoria cul-de-sac.

Harper and wife Laureen helped paint and decorate eggs with about a dozen youngsters before he took the proceedings back outside for the reannouncement.

Harper was asked whether Canadians are prepared to trust him with the unfettered power that comes with a parliamentary majority.

“We always say in all these elections in a democratic ethos, voters are never supposed to give absolute trust to anybody,” he replied.

He then added: “The choice is obvious, to trust the government that is leading Canada on the right track.”

Harper was also asked about a recent spate of vandalism against Liberal signs and property owners.

“I’ll just tell you we suffer acts of vandalism and these sorts of things as well,” he said. “None of them are acceptable. They should not happen in a campaign.”

Party officials later circulated a list of media reports of various vandalism against Conservative signs.

Ignatieff also condemned the vandalism: “This is not my Canada and I’m sure this is not the Canada of any of the political parties. We find it a disgrace and we hope it stops.”

Harper ended his campaign day attending an Easter service at a Chinese church in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, his third campaign visit to the city since start of campaign.

Harper’s campaign was side-swiped Saturday by controversy after it was revealed that a Tory candidate in Vancouver attended an event hosted by Ripudaman Singh Malik — who was acquitted of criminal charges laid in the 1985 Air India bombings.

Conservative supporters, prompted by campaign staffers, drowned out the media by cheering loudly for over a minute as a journalist tried asking a question about the matter.

The Tory candidate, Wai Young, said she had no warning that Malik would be at the event at a local school and would not have gone had she known.

The cheering crowd made it impossible to ask Harper how, given Malik’s profile in B.C., his local candidate could have been unaware that she was attending an event where Malik endorsed her.

Evidence entered during Malik’s trial revealed he provided financial assistance to the family of Inderjit Singh Reyat. Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter for supplying parts to make the bombs that brought down an Air India jet, killing more than 300 people.