By Steven Pearlstein
                  Washington Post Foreign Service

                  MONTREAL, Feb. 29—Canadian officials today ordered a Cuban
                  diplomat who was expelled from the United States on spy charges to leave
                  the country because his 48-hour transit visa had expired, but there was no
                  indication that Cuba would comply.

                  Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy continued to demand that Cuban
                  authorities "live up to their responsibilities and to the basic rules of
                  diplomacy" by ordering Jose Imperatori home. Imperatori, 46, arrived
                  Saturday after he was deported by the FBI because he wouldn't leave the
                  United States voluntarily. He applied for a 30-day visa on Monday, but
                  Canada turned him down.

                  "It is surprising, frankly, that they would take this action," Axworthy said
                  this afternoon. He termed Cuba's action a "serious breach" of diplomatic
                  "practice, custom, convention and courtesy."

                  Imperatori is holed up in the Cuban Embassy--considered foreign soil
                  under international law--so there is nothing Canadian officials can do to
                  remove him other than threaten a further deterioration in relations with
                  Havana.

                  A Cuban Embassy spokesman, Camilo Garcia, said he didn't know when
                  Imperatori, who is in the fourth day of a hunger strike, was leaving. "He
                  wants to go to the United States to clarify the situation on his case," Garcia
                  said. He told Reuters news service that Imperatori's health is
                  "deteriorating" because of the hunger strike.

                  FBI agents brought Imperatori to Montreal on Saturday night on the
                  understanding that he would fly to Havana on Sunday. Instead, he went to
                  Ottawa where he has remained at the embassy on orders from his
                  government, claiming he wants to disprove allegations that he was spying
                  while working as the vice consul in the Cuban interest section in
                  Washington. His visa expired just before midnight on Monday, meaning
                  that he is now in Canada illegally.

                  Privately, U.S. and Canadian diplomats view Imperatori's refusal to leave
                  Canada as a publicity stunt designed to turn world opinion against the
                  United States and rally anti-American sentiment in Havana, where
                  Imperatori's wife has become a local hero.

                  The diplomat's wife and 3-year-old son returned to Havana Friday night
                  after the State Department declared him persona non grata, alleging that he
                  was the contact for a U.S. immigration official in Miami who has been
                  accused of passing secrets to the Cuban government.

                  Earlier this year, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced that he
                  was putting "a little northern ice" on Canada-Cuba relations after the
                  government of Fidel Castro imposed unusually harsh sentences on four
                  political dissidents. And Castro is reportedly still angry about the defection
                  of a half-dozen Cuban athletes during last summer's Pan American Games
                  in Winnipeg.

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