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Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday he will stress to Barack Obama that Canada's relationship with the U.S. is its most important, and that he will make energy and the environment a top priority for dealings with the new administration.

And Mr. Harper, who often strived to place public distance between himself and President George W. Bush, was not reluctant to express goodwill to Mr. Obama - an association that paints the Conservative Prime Minister as more centrist.

"I think the whole world is very excited about the possibility of change in the United States and the government of Canada feels the same," Mr. Harper told reporters.

He and Mr. Obama spoke briefly by phone yesterday in what Mr. Harper's aides described as a "warm exchange" in which both "emphasized that there could be no closer friends and allies and vowed to maintain and further build upon this strong relationship."

Earlier, in his first public comments since Mr. Obama was elected Tuesday, Mr. Harper called the election of the Illinois senator "inspiring."

"This is a tremendous, historic occasion for the United States, in all kinds of ways. Obviously the election of the first African-American president is a tremendous and truly inspiring moment, I think, in American political history," he told reporters in Toronto.

But he also said the president-elect faces major challenges, and the Prime Minister is clearly preoccupied with how Mr. Obama's handling of U.S. economic challenges might affect Canada's own.

Mr. Harper made his comments just after meeting economists from a think tank, the CD Howe Institute. They urged him, he said, not to be afraid to run a deficit during the economic downturn rather than taking measures that would hurt the economy.

Mr. Harper said the economy is at the top of a list of three priorities for relations with the new Obama administration - along with energy and the environment, and security issues such as Afghanistan.

"I will tell the president-elect that for Canada, our most important international relationship is always with the United States, for all kind of reasons," he said.

Mr. Harper's government moved the day after Mr. Obama was elected to announce it would seek a Canada-U.S climate-change pact. It is clear Canada is seeking to tie that to U.S. concerns about a secure energy supply, and use a pact to prevent the U.S. from adopting measures that would punish Canada's industry and exports from Alberta's oil sands - which Mr. Obama's advisers have referred to as "dirty oil."

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach reacted yesterday to Ottawa's call for a Canada-U.S. pact by demanding a direct role in the talks.

Yesterday, the Fraser Institute, a conservative think tank, released a paper on Canada's relations with the Obama administration, calling for just such a climate-change pact as a means to protect Canadian industry from punitive U.S. measures.

The author, Simon Fraser University professor Alexander Moens, argues that the creation of a cap-and-trade system to reduce emissions is a bad idea - but Mr. Obama is for it, so it is crucial that Canada be part of the same system, or its industry will be punished.

Dr. Moens said U.S. policy makers will insist on imposing damaging import tariffs on goods if Canada does not have the same emissions caps, and protectionists will lobby for them unless Canadian companies are part of the same regime.

Critics, such as New Democratic MP Nathan Cullen, argue that Ottawa's offer of a pact is just "spin," because the emission-reductions measures proposed by Mr. Harper's government are not as firm as those sought by Mr. Obama.

Dr. Moens argues that Mr. Obama's plan will be loaded with provisos in Congress, making it closer to Canada's.

He also argues that the election of a liberal Democrat who is popular here could provide an opportunity for Canada-U.S. relations, because the Canadian public will not show its typical wariness of the U.S. And an Obama-Harper association can also help Mr. Harper politically by giving him a more centrist image.

" 'Friend of Obama' is going to be very good for him in Canada - for the immediate future," Dr. Moens said.

With a report from Tavia Grant