The Liberal government will try to retake the news agenda this coming week with major announcements on immigration and foreign policy as election fever continues to build.

On Monday, Immigration Minister Joe Volpe is expected to announce changes that will streamline family reunification procedures and make it easier for foreign students to work part-time in Canada while studying.

However, federal officials told The Canadian Press that Volpe was making the moves because they are sound public policy, not an attempt to curry political favour with ethnic communities.

While the apolitical business of government grinds on, at least one Liberal hopeful has opened his campaign office.

David McGuinty, who won for the Liberals in the riding of Ottawa South in 2004, wants to throw his hat in the ring again.

"There's always a risk that Mr. Harper and Mr. Duceppe in this rather unholy alliance would like to come together and bring this government down. It's their choice," he said.

While McGuinty -- brother of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty -- readies his team to knock on an estimated 55,000 doors, one opposition MP said they had better be thick-skinned.

"I think it will be very tough," Ed Broadbent, the NDP MP for Ottawa Centre, told CTV News. "I don't want to be glib, but what are they going to say -- 'we're not all crooks?'"

The allegations of kickbacks and corruption coming out of the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal have battered Liberal popularity -- and made the Conservatives look like a more attractive alternative.

"It's not often when you walk down Bank Street on Saturday and the hot dog man yells, 'we need a new prime minister,' and all the people waiting for hot dogs cheer," Conservative MP John Reynolds told CTV News in Ottawa on Sunday.

However, when CTV's Rosemary Thompson repeated the experiment around some other hot dog vendors and buyers, there wasn't the same enthusiasm for a spring vote.

"Why would they waste (millions) to probably get what they've they've got already," said one.

Sources tell CTV News the Tories -- who are showing the best poll results in over a decade -- would like to defeat the government in mid-May for a June election. But first, they would like the public to hear two key Liberal witnesses: Tony Mignacca and Joe Morselli. Both men were close associates of one-time public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, an architect of the sponsorship program.

When the vote eventually happens, a Bloc Quebecois MP said he's looking forward to the boost the Quebec sovereigntist movement would receive with a strong Bloc showing.

"If we do well, there will be sovereigntists en masse at the federal Parliament, which is a message to Quebecers and Canadians that sovereignty is not dead," Bloc MP Richard Marceau told CTV News.

The Bloc captured 54 seats in Quebec in the June 28, 2004 federal election. The Liberals had 21 seats. The Conservatives and NDP were shut out in Quebec.

In an appearance on CTV's Question Period on Sunday, Volpe tried to push that point. He even tried to link the Tories and the Bloc.

"The only reason that the Bloc is going to have the kind of impact that it has (in Quebec), is that Stephen Harper is a more ardent provincialist and separatist than even Gilles Duceppe (the Bloc leader)," he said.

Reynolds said on Question Period that Conservative Leader Harper will "show Canadians how this country can be run -- so Quebecers will be proud to be part of Canada."

With a report from CTV's Rosemary Thompson