TORONTO, Sept 6: As the death toll of Canadian soldiers rises in Kandahar, some prominent opposition leaders here stepped up their campaign to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and urged Ottawa to review its foreign policy.

While leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party Jack Layton demanded withdrawal of troops by February 2007, chief of the separatist party – Bloc Québécois – Gilles Duceppe called for an emergency debate in parliament on the direction Canada’s foreign policy is taking.

“There’s a growing feeling among Quebeckers that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is moving in lockstep with US President George W. Bush on foreign policy, from Israel to Afghanistan,” he said in Montreal. “I think they have more and more the impression that Harper is taking the same alignment that Bush is taking, and they are firmly against that,” Mr Duceppe was quoted as saying by the Globe and Mail.

Mr Layton told a news conference in Toronto on Tuesday that there was a growing mood across the country that Canada should end its mission in Afghanistan.