MONTREAL - Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is ridiculing the Conservative government's evolving explanations for shutting down Parliament but is also signalling he hopes to avoid a confrontation over the budget.

In an interview broadcast earlier this week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper claimed proroguing Parliament allows him to avoid instability as his minority government prepares a new economic agenda.

Harper said parliamentary hijinks, such as votes of confidence and rampant election speculation, were interpreted negatively by financial markets.

This was a marked departure from the government's previous justifications, which centred on the need to draw up a new recovery plan for the economy.

Ignatieff dismissed Harper's latest explanation out of hand, calling it the "funniest thing in politics that I've heard in a very long time."

"The idea that democracy creates instability is ridiculous," he told reporters in Montreal on Tuesday.

"What does he want? To cancel Parliament altogether so we can have the stability of a prime minister without any limits on his power?"

The Liberal caucus plans to further protest the proroguing by meeting in Ottawa on Jan. 25, the day the Commons was originally slated to meet again after the Christmas break.

Although the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois have indicated they likely won't join the Liberals, Ignatieff said his party will take advantage of the time to draw up a list of proposals on unemployment for the upcoming budget.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to table a federal budget the day after Parliament reconvenes.

But Ignatieff stressed his party won't be making its support conditional on seeing its proposals included in the final draft.

"We will not put absolute conditions on our support," he said. "These are positive suggestions."

Ignatieff appeared to be giving his party an exit strategy should the government's survival rely on Liberal support. The Tories narrowly avoided an election last fall after Ignatieff announced the Liberals would no longer vote with the government on confidence motions.

In the end, the NDP rallied to the Tory cause.

Ignatieff said he is willing to meet with Harper for budget consultations, but added "the words 'co-operation' and 'Harper' don't go well together."

He also accused Harper of trying to operate outside the usual checks and balances of Canadian democracy.

"The reality is Parliament has to do its job, to hold the prime minister accountable," he said. "That doesn't create instability, that's just institutions working the way they should."

The Liberal leader spent the day speaking to university students in Montreal, the second leg of a cross-country tour of post-secondary institutions which comes amid swelling anger at Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament until March 3.

More than 150,000 people have joined a Facebook group dubbed Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, while 175 academics signed a letter, published Tuesday in several newspapers across the country, that protests the government's decision to prorogue Parliament.

Even The Economist, the revered right-wing weekly, ran an editorial chastising Harper.

Ignatieff repeated his pledge, made a day earlier in Nova Scotia, that he would never prorogue Parliament for partisan reasons.

"Not only do we have to rebuild the prestige of Parliament, we also have to rebuild the prestige of what we do (as politicians)" he told students at the Universite de Montreal's business school.