TORONTO (AP) – Prime Minister Paul Martin will sit down with NDP Leader Jack Layton to discuss propping up the minority Liberal government.

Jamey Heath, a spokesman for Layton, confirmed Sunday from Ottawa that the two leaders have agreed to a meeting but he would not say where or when the get-together would take place.

Heath said the New Democrats want to deal with a broad agenda that goes beyond the sponsorship scandal that is pounding the Liberals in opinion polls.

But even with NDP support, the government’s survival is uncertain.

The Liberals and NDP combined have 151 seats while the Conservatives and Bloc have 153.

There are three independents, of whom two – Carolyn Parrish and Chuck Cadman – have said they will support the government. David Kilgour is expected to vote with the opposition.

In case of a tie, House Speaker Peter Milliken would support the Liberals. But predictions are impossible because some MPs are ill and might be absent for the crucial vote. The Conservatives will also need to consider the optics of becoming de facto allies of the separatist party.

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Hatemongers said more dangerous despite crippling of neo-Nazi leadership

TORONTO (AP) – The shooting death of Wolfgang Droege will do little to slow the growth of a new generation of potentially violent white supremacists in Canada, warns a former CSIS mole who helped discredit the neo-Nazi leader.

In the age of the Internet, smaller, independent extremist cells can get their ideological inspiration from abroad instead of rallying around a highly visible leader, said Grant Bristow, once an informant with Canada’s spy agency.

“Some of these more insidious organizations are able to articulate the message without that necessity for either face-to-face contact or that group camaraderie,” Bristow, who remains in hiding, told The Canadian Press in a rare interview.

Droege, the 55-year-old co-founder of the Heritage Front, once Canada’s most prominent and active neo-Nazi organization, was found shot dead two weeks ago.

His death, coupled with the deportation to Germany last month of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, has left a void in the leadership of Canada’s white right.

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Alta’s top Mountie confident ambush probe will show police acted properly

EDMONTON (AP) – Alberta’s top Mountie says he is confident the investigation into the fatal ambush of four RCMP officers near Mayerthorpe will find that the police operation was conducted properly.

Assistant Commissioner Bill Sweeney says he is also upset with former Mounties for making “destructive” comments about RCMP tactics that were used at gunman Jim Roszko’s farm on March 3.

Sweeney, a former tactical team leader who once served as operations officer with the RCMP counter-terrorist squad, said no police plan is perfect.

“From what I have seen, from what I have been briefed about with respect to the detachment commanders and supervisors, I’m quite confident that we will come to a conclusion that for an operation such as this, the members were properly trained, properly equipped, properly instructed – were taking precautions,” Sweeney told The Canadian Press in an interview.

“We encountered a situation that was out of the ordinary. I know tactical operations and tactical planning is supposed to anticipate all contingencies. And in a perfect world that would occur, but in the real world it doesn’t happen all the time.”