OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada's political leaders are playing an elaborate game of chicken over an expected vote of confidence in the minority Conservative government – and if no one blinks, Canada will head to an election few people want.

It would be the third general election in three-and-a-half years, and as polls stand it would deliver another minority Conservative government headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The three opposition parties are all making bellicose noises about whether they will back the government's policy direction, formally laid out in Parliament in the Speech from the Throne on October 16 – each trying to avoid being seen as the Conservatives' lackeys.

"My suspicion is that they probably either cannot or will not produce a throne speech that my colleagues and I will find satisfactory," said one influential Liberal legislator.

He and several other Liberals, the largest opposition party, have said it would be extraordinarily rare for the official opposition to support a throne speech.

That suggests, on the face of it, that they would leave it to the smaller Bloc Quebecois or New Democrats to support the government if need be.

The Conservatives needs one opposition party to vote in favour of the throne speech, or at least to abstain in sufficiently large numbers, or the minority government, elected in January 2006, will fall.

Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, taking the most uncompromising line of any of the opposition leaders, piqued the political establishment's interest on Saturday by laying out what he called non-negotiable conditions for his backing. They included a commitment to pull out of Afghanistan by February 2009 and to respect the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

"We're waiting for the speech from the throne. Be ready. If these things aren't in it, we'll be having an election," Duceppe said in a speech.

That leaves the leftist New Democrats, who have also said they would find it difficult to support the government.

Scratch beneath the surface, however, and there are signs the Liberals will at least think twice about toppling the Conservatives.

"The ground must be fertile for us to win," said a Liberal member of Parliament from western Canada, who is urging caution.

While Harper has been unable to extend the Conservatives' lead in the polls to the level where he could expect a majority of seats in the House of Commons, Liberal leader Stephane Dion has also been unable to overtake Harper.

Dion has expressed his list of conditions – also featuring Kyoto and Afghanistan, as well as poverty and competitiveness – more as hopes and desires than actual lines in the sand.

"We'll see what's in the throne speech. There's no question of rejecting the throne speech without seeing it," Dion said.

As for Harper's team, they have been bolstered both by the Liberals' poor by-election showing and their having won one of the three seats in play in Quebec from the Bloc Quebecois.

The Conservatives have ruled out major concessions, such as a firm commitment to an Afghan pullout, but also do not appear to be trying aggressively to force an election.