CLINTON . . . O CANADA

President Clinton began a two-day Ottawa summit with Prime Minister Jean Chretien with a folksy address to the Canadian Parliament in which he reaffirmed U.S. peacekeeping commitments to its northern neighbor, despite Republican-led efforts to scale them back. "For a half-century, the United States has shared your philosophy of action and consistent exercise of leadership abroad," Clinton told his enthusiastic audience. "And I am determined, notwithstanding all the crosscurrents in our country, that we shall preserve that commitment." But Clinton dodged what White House aides said would be a public statement opposing Canada's Quebec separatist movement. TIME White House correspondent James Carney, in Ottawa with the president, says Clinton feared offending the separatists -- one of whom is now an opposition leader in Canada's government -- even though "it's obviously in the U.S. interest to deal with one country and not two."