* Polls point to minority Conservative government
* Harper wakes up to NDP surge, warns of snake oil
* PM suggests he would make concessions in minority govt
By Allan Dowd
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, April 28 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his Conservatives under siege from the New Democrats before the May 2 election, accused his left-leaning rivals of being "smiles and snake oil," but opened the door on Thursday to compromise to stay in power.
Sensing that the chances of turning his minority government into a majority appeared to be fading, Harper shifted his attack from the faltering Liberals to the New Democratic Party, which now holds second place in most opinion polls.
"It matters who is making the big decisions. Sometimes the tough decisions, they're not all easy decisions. They're not all smiles and snake oil," Harper said on Wednesday.
For most of the campaign, which kicked off after the government was brought down by a nonconfidence vote on March 25, the Conservatives had a poll lead that might have brought them a majority, with the Liberals in a distant second place.
But the NDP's surge past the Liberals has whittled that poll lead down to no more than six points this week, indicating another Conservative minority, and giving rival parties the chance of forming their own coalition that would boot the Conservatives out of power.
Both the NDP and the Conservatives promise to eliminate the federal deficit by 2014-15.
The Conservatives would do it by eliminating waste and hoping that lower corporate taxes will encourage growth, while the NDP would boost corporate taxes, and bring in a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gas emission.
The Conservatives had so far shown little willingness to compromise on policies that opposition parties had already rejected, stressing that a new Conservative government would reintroduce the budget presented in March.
But Harper said on Thursday he would try to bring opposition parties on side.
"Obviously if you're in a minority, you do your best to bring people together," he said in a CTV interview.
If a Conservative minority government can't win support from at least one opposition party, it would fall quickly. If the NDP wins more seats than the Liberals, it would have the next chance of forming a government, likely in a formal or informal coalition with the Liberals.
"Working together we can accomplish great things," NDP leader Jack Layton said on Thursday in Yellowknife, capital of the thinly populated Northwest Territories.
A Nanos Research tracking poll released on Thursday put support for the Conservatives at 36.6 percent, compared with 30.4 percent for the NDP and 21.9 percent for the Liberals. (Additional reporting by Rod Nickel and David Ljunggren; writing by Randall Palmer; editing by Janet Guttsman and Rob Wilson)
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