OTTAWA, TORONTO, WALKERTON, ONT. — Conservative Leader Stephen Harper pledged Wednesday to withdraw Canadian troops in 2011 from not just Kandahar, but all of Afghanistan, leaving no room for transfer to a safer region of the country.

His statement went further than a parliamentary deal he cut earlier this year with the Liberals to pull Canadian forces out of Kandahar in 2011.

At a NATO summit in April, Mr. Harper left the door open to keeping Canadian soldiers in the country, perhaps in the less violent north.

But yesterday, in the first week of the campaign for the Oct. 14 election, Mr. Harper sought to ensure that no such questions would hamper his efforts to woo the political centre and skeptical Quebeckers.

He pledged that if the Conservatives win, all Canadian troops except a few advisers would clear out of Afghanistan entirely in 2011.

He said 10 years of war is enough.

“I think that we have to say to the government of Afghanistan: ‘We have an expectation that you are going to be responsible for your own security. We're not there to permanently manage your security,'“ Mr. Harper told reporters yesterday.

He added: “I don't really think there will be much appetite among Canadians. I don't think even among the armed forces themselves – although they probably wouldn't say so – much appetite to see rotations continuing the way they've been after six years.”

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton insisted the commitment was motivated only by Mr. Harper's desire to win the election, and argued that he could not be trusted to stick to it.

“A week ago he was ambiguous about when we were supposed to leave, but I think he knows now what Canadians want, to leave in 2011. But he has been ambiguous with our allies,” Mr. Dion said.

He argued that Mr. Harper left it too late to inform allies that Canada would leave Kandahar in 2009 and a replacement was not lined up, so the Liberals decided it would be irresponsible to oppose extending the mission. The only way to ensure the mission ends in 2011, he argued, is to elect the Liberals.

However, Mr. Harper's sharper line on Afghanistan could help inoculate him against a potential obstacle in Quebec: a poll by the Strategic Counsel taken Aug. 25 to 31 found that 76 per cent of Quebeckers opposed the Afghan mission.

The announcement was part of a first-week campaign that has showed that the Tory Leader is resolved to deal quickly with potential wounds.

On Tuesday, he quickly apologized for a Tory website that showed a puffin defecating on Mr. Dion.

Mr. Harper's clearer pledge on Afghanistan might remove some of the threat to the Conservatives from the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, both of which opposed extending the mission past 2009.

The NDP, which supports an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, appears to have surged in 10 key B.C. ridings where there were close races in the last election, taking votes from Tories and Liberals, according to a new poll by the Strategic Counsel.

And in Quebec, Mr. Harper's promise to withdraw the troops might help him capitalize on the struggles of the sovereigntist Bloc.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe spent yesterday responding to a sharp attack from former Parti Québécois provincial minister Jacques Brassard, who accused the party of being an NDP clone – too far left, and soft-pedalling sovereignty.

“I simply feel that a Prime Minister who at one time said we should go into Iraq, who has continuously expanded our military mission in Afghanistan, who has been very critical of anyone who has even raised a question about it, simply can't be trusted to ensure that what he is saying now is in fact what is going to happen,” Mr. Layton said.

The security situation in Afghanistan is widely seen as being as bad as, or worse than, it was a year ago, when Mr. Harper argued for an extension. And few experts believe that the Afghan government will be able to carry the full burden of combat against the Taliban in 2011.

“I don't think there's any chance of that – or a very small chance,” said Janice Stein of the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies and co-author of The Unexpected War, a book about the Afghan mission.

As Mr. Harper delivered yet another attack on Mr. Dion's Green Shift to cut income taxes and raise carbon-fuel taxes, Mr. Layton offered his own proposals on balancing environmentalism and the economy. He promised a four-year, $8.2-billion plan to create “green-collar jobs,” including extending tax breaks for the purchase of manufacturing equipment, spending to encourage car makers to produce low-emission vehicles, and trade rules requiring the federal government to buy Canadian.

The hardest hit of the day came Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams.

As someone dressed in a puffin suit carried a sign that read “ABC” – for Mr. Williams's anybody-but-Conservative campaign – the Premier called Mr. Harper a fraud, told him to keep the provincial bird out of his “nasty, disgusting, personal attack ads,” and warned of his right-wing agenda.

“A majority government for Stephen Harper would be one of the most negative political events in Canadian history,” he said.

With reports from Daniel Leblanc in Sherbrooke and Gloria Galloway in Toronto