TALKS SHOW NEW CANADIAN CONFIDENCE, GROUP SAYS

  Canada's decision to raise the issue
  of a free trade pact with the U.S. was a sign of what many see
  as a new spirit of Canadian self-confidence, a public policy
  study group said 
      "It suggests the Canada of the immediate post-war period,
  when it was a major player in the process of building a postwar
  world," the Washington-based Atlantic Council said.
      U.S. and Canadian negotiators opened talks last summer
  aimed at dismantling trade barriers between the two countries,
  the world's biggest trading partners with crossborder shipments
  of about 150 billion dlrs annually.
      The council's study said the trade talks, with a deadline
  of October for an agreement, are the biggest issue in
  U.S.-Canadian relations.
     The study said liberalized trade between the two countries
  would improve the competitiveness of their economies in world
  markets and lessen trade irritants which now mar their ties.
      The council said "in the past most Canadians have shied away
  from the notion of a free-trade arrangement, fearing to be
  overwhelmed economically and politically by a closer
  association with a country 10 times their size in population."
      But at the same time, it added, Canadians realized their
  domestic market was too small to permit the mass production and
  sales needed to raise productivity to the level demanded by an
  increasingly competitive world.
      The council said that in the talks, Canada is chiefly
  interested in minimizing the imposing of U.S. duties against 
  allegedly subsidized exports.
      A recent example was the 15 per cent duty the U.S. imposed
  on Canadian lumber exports on grounds the shipments were being
  subsidized.
      The council said the chief U.S. concerns included ending
  curbs against U.S. banking, insurance, telecommunications, and
  the so-called "cultural industries" - publishing, broadcasting
  and films.
      It said other major U.S.-Canadian issues were defense
  cooperation, "acid rain" and the U.S. rejection of a Canadian
  assertion of sovereignty over waters of the Northwest Passage.
  

