  We present a 21-cm emission-absorption study towards extragalactic sources in
the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS). We have analyzed HI spectra towards
437 sources with S > 150 mJy, giving us a source density of 0.6 sources per
square degree at arcminute resolution. We present the results of a first
analysis of the HI temperatures, densities, and feature statistics. Particular
emphasis is placed on 5 features with observed spin temperatures below 40 K. We
find most spin temperatures in the range from 40 K to 300 K. A simple HI
two-component model constrains the bulk of the cold component to temperatures
(T_c) between 40 K and 100 K. T_c peaks in the Perseus arm region and clearly
drops off with Galactocentric radius, R, beyond that. The HI density follows
this trend, ranging from a local value of 0.4 cm^{-3} to less than 0.1 cm^{-3}
at R = 20 kpc. We find that HI emission alone on average traces about 75% of
the total HI column density, as compared to the total inferred by the emission
and absorption. Comparing the neutral hydrogen absorption to CO emission no
correlation is found in general, but all strong CO emission is accompanied by a
visible HI spectral feature. Finally, the number of spectral HI absorption
features per kpc drop off exponentially with increasing R.
