Smith, will address the Bermuda branch of the Institute of Directors tonight on the changes affecting the economic climate in Canada after it repatriated its Constitution (The British North-American Act) from Great Britain.

Mr. Smith dealt with the issue directly as a former Attorney General for the province of British Columbia and has been an active speaker on civil law reform and a number of uniquely Canadian issues. He has also held portfolios in the BC cabinet under Education and Energy, and Mines and Petroleum.

He has been a participant in several Constitutional Conferences in Canada. He has also been involved in the substantive talks between CN and Canadian Pacific (CP), the two major competing national rail carriers in Canada, as they move closer to an expected merger of their eastern freight operations.

Mr. Smith holds out hope for a summer accord.

The two companies have been operating unprofitable freight routes in direct competition with one another from Winnipeg to the Atlantic Ocean, and have spent three months trying to come to some mutually acceptable agreement. Their western routes have been largely subsidising the unprofitable routes.

"We need to rationalise and emerge with one dynamic company,'' Mr. Smith said. "It's a huge undertaking that flies in the face of history and politics.

"We have been at each others' throats for 70 years. It is political because 11,000 jobs are being lost over three years, as CN re-structures and downsizes itself now, just to get it more efficient. Some communities are losing rail services for freight traffic.'' The merger talks have been underway for three months and it is possible that the two companies will be able to present a plan for corporate re-structuring for approval to regulators and the six-month old Liberal Government by the end of the summer.

Mr. Smith's speech is being delivered at a buffet dinner at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton.