Toronto — Pope John Paul will return to Italy with a soapstone carving, a model canoe and a miniature Inukshuk, gifts given to him by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and other dignitaries with whom the pontiff had personal meetings Saturday morning.

Meeting the Pope was a "spine-tingling experience," Ontario Premier Ernie Eves said speaking with the leader of the Roman Catholic Church near the end of his seven-day Canadian visit.

"He really is truly a great leader," Mr. Eves said. "We're all on this planet together and he reaches out far beyond provincial or Canadian politics, of course. He reaches out all over the world and it's a very non-partisan approach and one that perhaps we should remember more often."

Mr. Eves and his live-in partner, Isabel Bassett, head of the publicly-funded television station TVOntario, painted for the Pope a picture of the province as a culturally diverse part of Canada.

"My best wishes for Ontario," the Pope said in slightly slurred speech after receiving a model canoe from the premier.

Mr. Chrétien extolled the virtues of Canada to the 82-year-old pontiff who sat between the Prime Minister and his wife, Aline, during their short audience with the Pope on Saturday morning.

"We receive 250,000 new immigrants every year from all the continents," Mr. Chrétien said. "People want to come and live in Canada evidently because it's a country where there is peace, there is tolerance, there is cultural diversity."

The stooped but alert and inquisitive Pope, who suffers from symptoms of Parkinson's disease, asked the Prime Minister whether military service was still obligatory in Canada, to which Mr. Chrétien replied that it had not been mandatory for about 50 years.

The Prime Minister presented the Pope with a "little souvenir," an Inuit soapstone carving, at Morrow Park, a retirement home for nuns north of the city, where the Pope will spend his last nights before leaving Canada on Monday.

Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman and his wife, Marilyn, also got a few minutes with the Pope, when they presented him with a miniature Inuit Inukshuk. Earlier in the week the pontiff blessed a 10-metre-high version of the Inukshuk — a traditional landmark — along the city's lakeshore.

"Go back in good health and pray for no rain tonight," Marilyn Lastman said to the Pope, referring to a massive outdoor vigil for World Youth Day pilgrims that was to take place at a park north of Toronto.