OTTAWA - Be afraid. Be very afraid.

With less than a fortnight remaining until Canadian voters determine Canada's next government, both Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff are pressing the panic button.

Nothing less than the unity of Canada may be at stake if the Conservatives don't finally win their coveted majority, the prime minister suggested Monday.

Countered Ignatieff's Liberals: Canada's most cherished social program is on the cutting block in the May 2 vote.

Perhaps all the expansive, alarmist campaign rhetoric was inspired by the wide-open vistas of the Far North, where both leaders were campaigning Monday -- so close, in fact, that their airplanes passed each other on the tarmac at the airport in Yellowknife.

"The future of health care is becoming one of the key issues in this election," Ignatieff said before jetting on to Winnipeg.

"It's an issue of equality of citizenship, making sure that no part of this country is denied that basic basket of services that all Canadians should be able to count on."

Later in the day, the Liberal campaign team took it to a new level with a fundraising letter under the name of former prime minister Paul Martin.

"The future of health care hangs in the balance" on election day, Martin wrote. "As you read this, there are just 14 short days remaining to save our cherished universal health care system."

Harper, meanwhile, stuck with a tried-and-true Canadian bogeyman: the spectre of separation.

A campaign pitch in Quebec by Gilles Duceppe imploring voters to support his Bloc Quebecois to stop a Conservative majority is proof, Harper said, that only a majority Conservative government can avert the next sovereignty referendum.

"It is his first step, among many, to moving toward having a Quebec referendum and obviously a referendum on his ultimate objective to break up the country," Harper warned.

The Conservatives also lashed out at the Liberals for new attack ads that target Harper's commitment to the Canada Health Act. The Liberals put words in Harper's mouth that actually came from his former boss at the National Citizen's Coalition, David Somerville.

The Liberals acknowledged the error, which originated in a Globe and Mail story. The quote would be replaced, they said, but not the ad, standing by their message -- that the Canada Health Act would remain in jeopardy on Harper's watch.

"It's getting tight," Ignatieff said of the Conservative complaint. "The heat's on. They can dish it out, but they can't take it."

Jack Layton of the New Democrats was pitching to a far different geographic reality Monday, stumping in Quebec City in hopes of cashing in on precious momentum from last week's televised leaders' debates.

He pitched Quebecers on a high-speed rail corridor from Quebec City to Windsor, Ont., before imploring Harper and Ignatieff to play nice -- particularly on the issue of national unity.

"I say to these other leaders, let's not use an election to try to whip up division between Canadians and between Canadians and Quebecers," Layton said.

"Let's use an election to talk about solutions about how we can come together."

At the outset, the day seemed to get off to a much more amicable start.

Harper invoked 1950s-era prime minister John Diefenbaker to reiterate a promise to complete the Dempster Highway joining Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.

Ignatieff reprised the Liberal platform promise to forgive student debt for doctors and nurses who commit to practice in under-serviced remote and rural areas.

But with polls suggesting things are tightening up, the race to May 2 is coming down to riding-by-riding trench warfare in which grand national promises may have less significance than local issues and organizational strength.

A Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey released Monday had Conservative support nationally at 36 per cent, compared to 28 for the Liberals, 19 for the NDP, eight per cent for the Bloc and seven for the Green party.

The telephone poll of 1,008 Canadians was conducted between April 14 and 17, and carries a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The fact both Harper and Ignatieff were even in the Arctic spoke to the stakes.

There are fewer than 70,000 eligible voters spread across Canada's Arctic and its three federal seats -- fewer voters than can be found in a 15-block radius of many big-city ridings.

But all the northern seats -- Western Arctic, Yukon and Nunavut -- have a history of swinging among the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP, making them ripe territory for campaigning leaders.

The Conservatives have made the North and the Canadian Forces the motifs of their government in an effort to differentiate themselves from the Liberals, the party of multiculturalism, bilingualism and the Charter.

Ignatieff attempted to undermine Harper's annual summer forays to the Far North, which have provided spectacular photo-ops during military exercises every year since the Conservatives came to power in 2006.

"Mr. Harper shows up every year for a photo op here, but he's militarized the whole question of the North and northern sovereignty," said Ignatieff.

A focus on issues such as health care, housing and healthy food are needed, said the Liberal leader, so the region is "much more than just a backdrop for southern fantasies."

Harper said his government has provided a long list of benefits to northerners, but added the best social program is a strong economy.

"The biggest step forward is jobs for people," Harper said.