Joan Bryden, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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OTTAWA - Love him or hate him, Stephen Harper is a less risky choice for prime minister than Liberal Leader Stephane Dion in these turbulent economic times.

That's the prosaic choice Conservative strategists want Canadians to make when they cast ballots in an election the prime minister is poised to call next week for Oct. 14.

At a briefing for reporters Friday, senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office said Harper is likely to pull the plug on his minority Tory government sometime between Sept. 2 and Sept. 7. And they said the most likely voting day is Oct. 14, one day after Thanksgiving.

Although they insisted no final decision has been made on election timing, the officials also laid out the broad strokes of the Conservative party's campaign "narrative" and the so-called ballot question they want Canadians to answer.

"We think it will be a choice between certainty and risk," one official said on condition of anonymity.

They characterized Dion as a novice and a ditherer who has failed to take decisive stands on crucial issues and who would bankrupt the nation's treasury with his "half-baked carbon tax" and unaffordable promises.

By contrast, they touted Harper as a decisive leader who would provide stability and sound management as the economy teeters on the brink of a recession.

"Love him or hate him, our prime minister knows where he stands on the issues and will offer Canadians certainty," the official said.

"We're in rough waters and a steady hand at the wheel is what our economy needs."

Officials said Harper will offer some "new and interesting ideas" during the campaign but will not make "wild promises" to spend billions or make any further big tax cuts. Harper will not raise taxes, they added.

They contrasted that with the centrepiece of the Liberal platform - Dion's risky proposal to impose a $15.3-billion carbon tax on fossil fuels, offset by equivalent income tax cuts and tax benefits.

Conservatives pounced on reports that some Liberal MPs are still hoping to make "adjustments" to the so-called green shift to respond to concerns raised by truckers, fishermen, farmers, rural residents and others who stand to be hardest hit by a tax on carbon. And they ridiculed Liberal MPs for contradicting their leader on aspects of the plan.

The PMO officials said Canadians should be wary of handing Dion the keys to the treasury when his own MPs can't explain or are worried about its economic impact.

"All of that is more risk and it's more uncertainty around our economy."

Earlier Friday, Harper met for about a half hour with Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe, ostensibly to help determine if there is any possibility of productive fall session of Parliament.

Duceppe said he suggested ways in which the government could continue to function, with issue-by-issue support from one or more opposition parties. But he said it seemed clear that Harper had already made up his mind to call an election, pre-empting the scheduled return of Parliament on Sept. 15.

"I think his plan is made. He wants an election, period."

Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for the prime minister, said Duceppe opened the meeting indicating that the Bloc does not have confidence in the government, which is "not a good starting point" for a productive fall session.

Harper is to hold a similar meeting - likely with similar results - with NDP Leader Jack Layton on Saturday. PMO officials said he's unlikely to wait for Dion, who has said he's too busy for an immediate conference with Harper.

Liberal insiders were pointing out Friday that the Tories' preferred election date of Oct. 14 falls on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. They suggested Harper may court a backlash from the Jewish community, which he has courted assiduously for two years.

A PMO official said Sukkot, along with Thanksgiving and several other religious holidays during October, "does present challenges" in choosing an election day. But he noted that people can vote in advance polls if they can't or don't want to cast a ballot on election day.

While Conservatives were touting Harper as a paragon of certainty, there was some uncertainty Friday about their own plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

At a news conference, Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism, called on Dion to clarify whether there will be any changes to the green shift. But asked about the indirect costs to consumers of the Tory plan to regulate emissions, Kenney said that calculation will have to wait until later this fall, when the regulations are published.

Environment Minister John Baird later told The Canadian Press that the regulations will not be published during an election campaign. However, he said the government has already estimated the cumulative cost of reducing emissions to be 0.4 per cent to one per cent of gross domestic product by 2020.