What a whirlwind day. I just returned from a series of four meetings with EU Embassies in Ottawa, with more to come over the coming days. These meetings are part of a lobby-busting tour organized by the Council of Canadians, joined by the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and Climate Action Network Canada (CAN Canada).

Our purpose is to meet with EU Embassies and challenge the arguments being brought forward by Canadian lobbying against the EU Fuel Quality Directive (FQD). The tour came to being after being informed that CAPP had requested meetings with at least one Embassy in Ottawa, and as part of our ongoing efforts to challenge Canadian lobbying against this policy.

One in 10 Canadians are not able to adhere to their prescriptions due to the cost of prescription drugs, found Michael Law et al. in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. But more than just numbers, the study asked who are those one in 10 and found something truly troubling. The people in Canada who are the most unlikely to adhere to prescription medication due to cost are: those who do not have drug insurance (public or private), those who earn the lowest income ($20,000 or less), and those who are in the poorest health or have multiple conditions -- in other words, those who could benefit the most from pharmacare.

Our need for pharmacare

Last week's signing of the Fraser Declaration on the part of First Nations in Alberta and the Northwest Territories marks a high point in a series of actions directed at the National Energy Board hearings in Edmonton.

As described in the below press release, the Fraser Declaration was led by the Yinka Dene Alliance; it is a formal declaration opposing the Enbridge Gateway project and supertankers on the B.C. coast.

On Friday, I posed questions that I hoped to find answers to through discussions related to the thematic social forum here in Porto Alegre. I wouldn't presume that the answers I've come up with are definitive, and truthfully I just have more questions now, but I wanted to offer these "observations from Brazil" in the hope that it helps us navigate Rio+20:

1. What could be the implications of Rio+20 on our campaigns related to the commons, the human right to water and sanitation, the rights of nature and climate justice approaches to the climate crisis?

I am in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with Blue Planet Project organizer Anil Naidoo for a Thematic Social Forum (titled "Capitalist Crisis, Social and Environmental Justice"), which is a primary civil society organizing moment in advance of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) -- more commonly referred to as Rio+20 -- set to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 13-22, 2012.

Prime Minister Harper and posse are in Europe this week for the annual World Economic Forum. He's hobnobbing with world leaders, business lobbyists and the super-elite, pushing Canada's entry into Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks, promoting the advanced Canada-EU free trade negotiations. So the leaking of key documents related to the CETA talks is bound to embarrass Harper and Trade Minister Ed Fast. At least we hope so...

In the early morning hours of Monday, January 16, as the sun rose on a fresh snow-covered ground, I, along with Canada's premiers, watched as 15 bright umbrellas came bobbing around the Victoria harbour. Fifteen youth activists representing Students for Medicare, Canadian Doctors for Medicare, British Columbia Health Coalition, HIV/AIDS organizations, GLBTQ rights organizations and more "braved the elements" (as the Globe and Mail reported) to send a message to premiers that medicare has got you covered.

As many of you have likely seen, read or heard, the Council of the Federation -- which is made up of the first ministers from each province and territory -- met in Victoria, B.C. to discuss the 2014 health care accord and hopefully find common ground on their response to the federal government's unilateral move on financing the Canada Health Transfer.

Maude and I found ourselves beside Christy Clark in the middle of a media scrum when she announced optimistically that the first ministers had made some progress finding a common ground. What they did agree on was that the actions of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in late December were "unprecedented and unacceptable" but it sounds like that was about it -- according to Alberta's Premier Alison.

Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow, health-care campaigner Adrienne Silnicki and organizing assistant Ava Waxman are in Victoria demanding a Canada health accord that defends and expands public health care.

So here we are in sunny and snowy (which is rare, I'm told) Victoria, B.C. for the Council of the Federation meeting. The first ministers from across Canada are arriving in Victoria tonight and tomorrow morning to discuss the 2014 health-care accord and likely decide what their response is going to be to a federal government who is calling for accountability in health care from the provinces but walking away from their own responsibilities.

This morning Maude, Ava (B.C. Regional Office) and I joined with pro-medicare allies and Health Care Critic Libby Davies at a roundtable conference on health care.