SAINT-BRUNO, Que. — Michael Ignatieff travelled through the region south of Montreal on Thursday, meeting supporters and slamming Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

During a stop in suburban Saint-Bruno, the Liberal leader said he's been looking for support on his national tour from Conservatives disappointed with their own government.

And Ignatieff repeated a now familiar phrase he's been using as he crosses the country -- inviting disgruntled Tories to come into the big red Liberal tent.

It was the 126th event of his Liberal Express tour and Ignatieff noted he's already covered 35,000 kilometres.

He told supporters he has been doing politics "in the good old-fashioned way" -- without any photo ops like the one by Prime Minister Harper in the Arctic on Wednesday.

Ignatieff says the event, which had jets flying overhead and a coast guard vessel in the background, cost at least $1 million and was an incredible waste of money.

The Liberal leader told reporters he laughed when the prime minister talked about Russian aircraft being chased away by Canadian military planes on Tuesday.

Ignatieff says people have tried to make him afraid of the Russian bear ever since his childhood, because he's partly Russian.

But he adds it was ridiculous for the prime minister to try to make people believe that without the intervention, the Russian bear would have come into Canadian homes.