The NDP leader responsible for keeping the minority Liberal government alive earlier this year is now devising ways to topple it from power.

In an unprecedented political manoeuvre, NDP Leader Jack Layton says his party will introduce a motion on November 24 that demands the Liberals resign after the holidays and hold a February election.

"We will call for an election to be called in early January for a voting day in mid-February," Layton told a news conference in Vancouver Wednesday.

He refused to elaborate on the precise wording of his proposed motion, but the New Democrats conceded that it is neither a confidence matter (which could topple the government immediately), nor is it binding on the government.

But they said Prime Minister Paul Martin would have a hard time justifying remaining in power without the confidence of the majority of the House of Commons.

The NDP leader called his proposal a "common-sense solution" that allowed Canadians to escape a Christmas election, but didn't allow the Liberal government to decide the timing of a vote.

"This avoids the holiday election that nobody wants," said Layton, who has been under tremendous pressure from the Tories to table a non-confidence motion on Nov. 24, the NDP's next scheduled opposition day.

Layton said he has discussed the strategy with his caucus and the other opposition leaders, and he will now work with them to tweak the wording of his unique proposal.

"What we proposed was just a simple matter of common sense," Layton repeated Wednesday evening on CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live. "We have a lot of people realizing that we need to have an election sooner rather than later because the Liberals have not acted on key issues. And we certainly gave them that opportunity, like we did in the spring, to try to make Parliament work."

The NDP leader said the plan would ensure that a first ministers meeting on aboriginal issues set for Nov. 24-25 takes place, and that it would also "allow us to tidy up some matters before" Parliament.

Those matters include an APEC summit the prime minister is scheduled to attend in mid-November, as well as an international climate change conference in Montreal in early December.

Layton said his proposal would also take into account other opposition parties' reluctance to campaign over the Christmas holidays.

Martin

The prime minister, who has promised to call an election within 30 days after the release of the final Gomery report due Feb. 1, seemed to laugh off the ever-shifting strategy of the opposition.

Speaking to reporters in Toronto Wednesday, Martin said his party's real challenge lies in "figuring out what the opposition is going to do in the next five minutes."

He said he has promised there will be an election in the spring or in early March, and that an earlier vote would scuttle some of the Liberals' important social and environmental initiatives.

"It is very hard for me to understand why one would put at jeopardy the funding that we want to give to lower-income families to protect them from the rising costs of fuel oil," Martin said.

"It is very hard for me to say that pensions to senior citizens should be put at jeopardy."

Liberal House Leader Tony Valeri said if the opposition parties have truly lost confidence in the government, they should be put forward a non-confidence motion.

"But if they do, they should recognize the cost of doing that to Canadians," he added.

Given that the NDP motion is not a traditional expression of non-confidence in the government, critics are questioning how much of a punch it carries.

Constitutional expert Ned Franks said the Liberals could choose to ignore it entirely.

"The government might well say, 'This can't be a no-confidence vote because you still want us to govern,'" Franks, a professor emeritus at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., told the Canadian Press.

"You're into open-ended politics."

University of Toronto political expert Nelson Wiseman said he doubts the Liberals will heed the opposition call for an earlier election.

"I think (the Liberals) want to run an election on a budget,"

Wiseman told Duffy. "They want to introduce a sunshine budget in February, and that's been their agenda all along."

On Monday, the Liberals are expected to deliver a fiscal update that will detail its pre-election platform. Wiseman said Finance Minister Ralph Goodale will announce a projection of a $10 billion surplus.

"I think that's going to be in the budget as well, and they will also say we're spending more on social programs and we're cutting the debt."

Harper

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are reacting positively to Layton's proposal and said all opposition parties are joining forces to bring down the minority Liberals.

Speaking to reporters in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon, Tory Leader Stephen Harper called the NDP plan "innovative."

"Mr. Layton is clear that he is not interested in agreement with the Liberal party at this point. He's interested in bringing them down."

Harper said he will be meeting with Layton and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe before parliament resumes on Monday to figure out how they're going to move forward to "wrap up this Parliament in a responsible way and put the question of the government's fate to the people of Canada, where it belongs."

Harper's tone on Tuesday was dour in comparison. He said his party had no intention of putting forward a confidence motion, since that would just play into the hands of the NDP.

Harper said he was worried that Layton would use a Conservative non-confidence motion as leverage to gain more concessions from the Liberals.

Layton later denied he would use a Conservative no-confidence motion as a "bargaining chip" with the Liberals.

Duceppe

The leader of the Bloc Quebecois has also expressed favour with Layton's decision to try to force and end to the current Parliament. But Duceppe said he will have to study the proposal before he agrees to anything.

"I haven't actually read the proposal, and I don't even know if it's in writing yet," Duceppe told reporters at a 4 p.m. ET news conference in Quebec City.

"We're going to take the time to discuss it an analyze it, but I do think we've made an important step forward."

Duceppe said it's clear the opposition parties no longer have confidence in the Liberal government, and they must now agree on exactly how to proceed.

The opposition parties don't want the Liberals to set the election timetable in a way that would give them the next few months to prepare a budget that they can campaign on. A delay could also lessen the impact of the sponsorship scandal.

But unless the parties come to an agreement soon on a strategy, the Liberals could simply continue to follow their own schedule.

The opposition parties will have to decide whether to defeat the government by voting on a non-confidence motion or against the government's spending estimates on Dec. 8.