Warming Trends Up North

When Tory Leader Brian Mulroney campaigned for election last summer, he promised voters that his party would curb Canada's nationalistic economic policies and open the way for more foreign investment. Now he is keeping that pledge. Last week Prime Minister Mulroney's government introduced a bill in Parliament that would reshape the Foreign Investment Review Agency set up by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1974.

The agency was created to ensure "significant benefit to Canada" from new foreign business ventures and takeovers. The end result was that it drove away many investors. Under the new name, Investment Canada, the organization will concentrate on increasing the flow of capital into the country by eliminating Cabinet review of most new investments and speeding up approval of takeovers. Said Industry Minister Sinclair Stevens in introducing the bill: "We believe that it is time for us to build bridges, not barriers, to new opportunities." The U.S. is the most important source of those new opportunities. Mulroney travels south this week to lay out his ideas in an address before New York City's Economic Club. His theme: Come on up.