NIAGARA FALLS—Relations with the U.S. would be set back for years if Canadians elect a leftist coalition government headed by NDP Leader Jack Layton on May 2, warns Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

Harper came to Canada’s honeymoon capital Thursday to tout his security perimeter deal with U.S. President Barack Obama — and to take shots at the soaring New Democrats.

“The most extreme view on trade on the other side is the NDP’s, which has opposed every trade deal we have signed,” the Tory leader said at a small rally.

“With Mr. Layton and the NDP calling the shots in a coalition of opposition parties, the border vision would be dead,” he said.

“Border communities like this — all of Canada in fact — would pass up on the most significant opportunity to advance our trading relationship with the United States in a generation.”

Clearly alarmed by polling that shows the New Democrats surging in many parts of the country, Harper escalated his rhetoric against the man who has emerged as his main opponent.

“Friends, the NDP approach to positions like trade has not changed since the Cold War. It is an ideological throwback, bad for the economy, bad for Canada,” he said.

He pleaded with Canadians to elect a Tory majority and cautioned against voting in “a ramshackle coalition led by the NDP that will not last and will do a lot of destruction.”

Harper, who barely acknowledged Michael Ignatieff’s sputtering Liberals during his 10-minute speech or 17-minute news conference, predicted the NDP’s $20 billion carbon tax scheme would increase the cost of gasoline by 10 cents a litre.

But he pointedly did not mention that he and Premier Dalton McGuinty were co-architects of the harmonized sales tax, which increased gasoline taxes by eight per cent when federal and provincial levies were melded last July 1.

Harper gave McGuinty $4.3 billion to convince him to harmonize the sales taxes, a fact he does not mention in his carefully honed speeches.

With federal public servants already preparing transition books in case of a New Democratic-led administration, Harper urged Canadians to consider what is at stake.

“The alternative the opposition offers, symbolized most dramatically by the NDP, are enormous increases in government expenses, the raising of taxes, the raising of prices, which we know will have a devastating effect on consumers’ pockets and ultimately on the economy and the destruction of jobs and that is the choice,” he said.

“That would be an enormous step backwards and Canadians need to understand how dramatically the choices really are.”

Harper said that if re-elected he will move forward with the “shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness” that he signed with U.S. President Barack Obama on Feb. 4.

“One in five Canadian jobs is linked to trade with the United States,” the Tory leader said Thursday, noting some $1.6 billion in goods and services cross the border each day.

“The declaration that I issued with President Obama will help to strengthen and bolster our trade relationship in order to complete the economic recovery and create jobs,” he said.

If the Tories continue in government, they will push the U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council to cut red tape on trade and other matters.

But some fear Canadians' privacy will be invaded because Ottawa will share too much of their personal information with Washington.

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Indeed, the Harper-Obama scheme rings Canada and the U.S. in a single security perimeter, boosting cooperation between Canadian and American police, border, and intelligence services.

Because negotiations between Ottawa and Washington are still shrouded in secrecy, it's unclear whether the accord could limit immigration to Canada.

That’s because the U.S. has tighter controls on immigration than Canada.

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