A newspaper publisher and former commissioner of the Canadian Football League will soon be announcing his intention to run for the leadership of the new Conservative Party, a spokesman said Saturday.

Larry Smith, publisher of the Montreal Gazette, will likely enter the race next month, said a veteran Quebec political organizer.

The new party, to be a merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties, needs to be approved by members of those parties by Dec. 12. The leadership vote will take place March 21.

Smith, 52, is a political novice. He will be in Toronto his week to meet with potential Bay Street supporters. They lost their favoured candidate when former Ontario premier Mike Harris announced he would not seek the new party's leadership.

The leading candidate for the new party is Stephen Harper, the current leader of the Canadian Alliance. A spokesperson for him said she had no knowledge about Smith preparing to enter the race.

Unlike the unilingual Harris, Smith is bilingual and a Quebecer. Every prime minister in the last 20 years whose tenure has lasted more than a few months has been a Quebecer. Smith was approached to run for the Alliance's leadership in 2000, but decided against it.