The promise to remove long-standing caps on foreign ownership came as party leaders vied to show that they understood the pain consumers in many parts of the country were feeling after gas prices rose sharply overnight Thursday.

The Conservative Leader said it appeared to him that oil companies were guilty of price-gouging, an accusation echoed by his Liberal and NDP counterparts, Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton.

The eruption of consumer populism came as a new poll showed Mr. Harper may be closing in on his coveted majority despite a series of miscues in the first week of the campaign for the Oct. 14 election. According to a Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey, the Conservatives are at 41 per cent, slightly above the level needed to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

Mr. Harper balanced his promise yesterday to relax prohibitions against foreign ownership by saying a new national security test would be established for foreign buyouts that might threaten the country's strategic interests.

"We are a party of free enterprise, free markets and free trade," he said in Halifax. "But we also believe a government needs to know when to be able to draw the line when any foreign takeover would jeopardize our national security." More...