A former U.S. ambassador to Canada issued a stern warning Monday that the possibility of Barack Obama in the White House presents a "danger" to Canada by threatening the fundamentals of Canada-U.S. trade relations.

Most polls show Obama leading heading into Tuesday's U.S. presidential election.

Former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci, who was the ambassador under Republican U.S. President George Bush for four years, told CTV's Canada AM that free trade is under threat with a Democratic win.

"There's a danger for Canada in that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the primary campaign were just about in a race to see who could take us out of NAFTA the quickest," Cellucci said.

"They made some pretty strong statements about the North America Free Trade Agreement, and if Barack Obama is elected with a strong Democratic majority in the House and the Senate, there's going to be a lot of pressure on him to do what he said he would do ... I don't think that would be good for the United States, I don't think that would be good for Canada."

Republican candidate John McCain, however, believes in the cross-border trade agreement and "how important this trade back-and-forth is to both of our countries and to the millions of people whose jobs are dependent on it," Cellucci said.

Spirit of co-operation

However, the former ambassador put partisanship aside to say that no matter who is elected to the White House, he believes there will be a spirit of co-operation and communication between the two nations that are each other's largest trading partners.

"Whoever is the leader of Canada, whoever is the leader of the United States, it's in each of our national interests to work together," Cellucci said.

"We're interconnected, we're dependent on each other, we have a lot of common interests and common values and I think they will work together no matter who it is."

Cellucci dismissed reports that the election is firmly in Democratic hands and Obama will walk away with the victory on Tuesday. He said McCain is still within five percentage points in most national polls, which is a surprising, given the unpopularity of the Iraq war, the current economic downturn and Obama's huge campaign budget.

McCain victory unlikely

Graham Dodds, a professor at Concordia University who specializes in U.S. domestic politics, agreed with Cellucci that regardless of who wins the election, the relationship between the two countries will in all likelihood remain strong.

But he conceded that in some ways, Canada would likely be better off with a McCain victory.

"An Obama presidency might mean a little more tension in a couple of areas," Dodds told CTV Newsnet.

He said Obama's comments about renegotiating NAFTA were most likely nothing more than campaign rhetoric, and he doubts such a change will actually happen.

However, he said Obama's stance on international trade is clearly more protectionist than McCain's, which could negatively impact trade relations.

Dodds also said Congress is likely to have a much stronger Democratic presence after the election if voting goes the way polls have suggested -- another factor that could affect Canada, he said.

"Democrats tend to favour protectionism as opposed to free trade and also burdensome environmental restrictions which both have heavy implications for the relationship with Canada in the future," Dodds said.

Fixing economy will be top priority

U.S. political commentator Mark Plotkin said the overriding issue in this election is the economy -- and Americans have traditionally sided with the Democrats in times of financial uncertainty, he said.

If, as Plotkin and Dodds predict, Obama wins the Tuesday election, his first order of business won't be to dismantle an important cross-border trade mechanism, but to try to fix the fractured U.S. economy, he suggested.

"People are worried about whether they can stay in their homes, whether they can afford a car loan, whether they can they meet their weekly and monthly bills. So that has overwhelmed everything else," Plotkin said.