OTTAWA — NDP and Bloc Quebecois are skeptical of Michael Ignatieff's newfound willingness to consider a coalition government -- if necessary -- after the next election.

And they have even less regard for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's anti-coalition rhetoric, dismissing it as dishonest and hypocritical.

Conservatives, meanwhile, have pounced on the Liberal leader's musings as proof that he's plotting a coalition of separatist-socialists losers to wrest power from Harper.

The parties were responding Monday to Ignatieff's weekend interview with The Canadian Press, in which he said he'd be prepared to lead a coalition government if that's the hand he's dealt by voters in the next election.

Ignatieff left his fellow opposition leaders standing at the altar in January 2009. He abandoned a coalition deal his predecessor, Stephane Dion, struck with the NDP -- backed by the Bloc -- a month earlier. On numerous occasions after that, Ignatieff has seemed to rule out the coalition option.

NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe are not convinced by Ignatieff's newfound willingness to work with them in a potential coalition.

"I hope you won't mind if I don't spend a whole lot of time following the bouncing ball," scoffed Layton.

"It's tough to understand," said Duceppe. "Is he for, is he against or just the opposite?"

But Conservatives issued talking points declaring that Ignatieff "has finally come clean" about a coalition plan that "remains unacceptable to Canadians."

In the Commons, Tory MP Jim Abbott asserted that Ignatieff has admitted he will "ignore Canadians' wishes and join forces with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois."

"It is not acceptable to give the NDP co-management of the economy. It is not acceptable to share power with a political party committed to the breakup of this country."

The emphasis on ignoring election results echoes the line adopted last week by Harper, during a visit to the prime minister of Britain's newly installed coalition government. Harper insisted that "losers don't get to form coalition governments," that public opinion will only tolerate coalitions led by the party that wins the most seats.

That didn't sit well with the opposition.

"He was lying," Duceppe said bluntly. He noted that Harper, while Opposition leader in 2004, advanced the idea of replacing the then-Liberal minority with a Conservative government, supported by the NDP and Bloc.

"Obviously it was him that would have been prime minister, even if he'd finished second," Duceppe said.

Layton said Harper needs to re-read his political science textbooks.

"The party with the most seats gets the first shot at forming a government," Layton said.

"That's the tradition. If they're not able to do it, then somebody else gets a shot at it. That's how the Westminster system (works), the Commonwealth countries have followed for years and years and it's done rather well.