UPDATE 1-Canada opposition NDP blasts rival in bid to regain lost ground

(Recasts with comments from start of debate)
By Randall Palmer and David Ljunggren
OTTAWA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - The leader of Canada's New
Democratic Party, trailing in the race to replace the
Conservatives in Oct. 19 elections, tried on Friday to regain
lost ground in its main stronghold by attacking his chief rival.
Opinion polls show the New Democrats of Thomas Mulcair -
which started the campaign strongly - could come in third
nationally and shed one-third of its seats in the predominantly
French-speaking province of Quebec.
One potential beneficiary of the slide is the rival
center-left Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau, who says he is the
best choice to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Mulcair said Trudeau backed Harper on key issues such as the
need for oil pipelines and a controversial new security law that
gives police broad powers.
"You have the same economic, social and environmental
policies. We're against Mr. Harper, we want to beat him and
replace him," he told Trudeau in a televised French-language
debate.
Mulcair has stumbled in Quebec over the question of whether
Muslim women should be allowed to fully cover their faces with
veils during citizenship ceremonies. The Conservatives are
trying to ban the practice.
Mulcair says women do not need to lift the veil as long as
they show their faces before the ceremony for identification
purposes - a stance that polls indicate is hugely unpopular in
the province.
He told a rally of New Democrats on Thursday that the most
important question of the campaign should be whether Canada
really wanted Harper to stay in power.
The tough-on-crime low-tax Conservatives are bidding to win
a rare fourth consecutive election.
Mulcair noted that after winning his first majority in 2011,
Harper had raised the retirement age to 67 from 65.
"Did you tell that to Quebecers and Canadians during the
last election (campaign)? What are you hiding this time, Mr.
Harper?" he said.
Harper, who like Mulcair is promising balanced budgets, says
both rival parties plan to ramp up spending so much that they
will need to rely on tax hikes and big budget deficits.
"It is important in an unstable world economy to preserve
our tax cuts," he said.
The New Democrats have never governed federally and became
the largest opposition party for the first time in 2011 after
winning a majority of seats in Quebec, Canada's second most
populous province.
A Leger poll in the Journal de Montreal on Friday showed the
party was now doing so poorly that it would take only 37 of the
78 Quebec seats in the House of Commons, down from the 54 it
currently has.
Nationally, surveys suggest the Conservatives will capture
the most seats but fall short of a majority. On paper, that
would leave them vulnerable to being defeated by the Liberals
and New Democrats acting together.