The Irish Farmers Association has released its strongest statement to date opposed to Canadian demands for higher beef and pork quotas in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. The IFA is asking the Irish trade and agriculture ministers, in their roles under the EU Presidency (which Ireland holds until July), "to intervene strongly at the highest level to prevent what is being flagged as a very bad deal for the Irish and European beef and livestock farmers."

U.S. energy giant Chevron (profits $26.2 billion USD) is encouraging the United States to pursue a strong NAFTA-like investment chapter and investor-state dispute settlement process in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union.

The Council of Canadians is part of a new global Fair Deal coalition which wants copyright rules taken out of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. A coalition website, launched this week as a 17th round of TPP negotiations gets underway in Lima, Peru, calls on TPP negotiators to "reject copyright proposals that restrict open Internet, access to knowledge, economic opportunity and fundamental rights." The website gives people an opportunity to send the same message and receive regular updates on Fair Deal campaign actions and successes.

Since my last post on Saturday, we have made our way along the route of the Pacific Trails Pipeline, making presentations in both Smithers and Burns Lake. Both of these cities would be impacted by the proposed Pacific Trails gas pipeline and associated infrastructure. In Smithers, we were informed that all hereditary chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en oppose "all pipelines" and the idea of an "energy corridor." Approving to an "energy corridor" would indicate the approval of not only the Pacific Trails Pipeline, but other energy pipelines as well such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.

This week, the Citizens Trade Campaign -- a U.S. coalition of environmental, labor, consumer, family farm, religious and other civil society groups -- reported that farmers and labour groups across the Pacific region are demanding that dairy be taken out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement altogether. Removing all barriers to trade in milk and milk products is a major demand of New Zealand and the United States in the TPP negotiations. But U.S., Canadian and Japanese dairy farmers and workers agree this is not in the interests of family farmers in any of the participating countries.

The online news journal iPolitics.ca reports there is more in the way of a Canada-European Union trade and investment deal than a disagreement over beef and cheese.

The Saint John Common Causes committee invited me to Saint John this week to offer a public talk on the current state of medicare and the 2014 Health Accord. I love being on the road because it offers me a chance to understand the challenges that each province faces with their health-care system and the successes and innovation that they've implemented to meet those challenges.

This week I spent time researching health care in New Brunswick, speaking with journalists and radio hosts, and talking to the community about their encounters with medicare.

Partway through the Building Resistance tour, we visited the Spring Work camp on Unist'ot'en territory located just outside of Houston, B.C.

At the camp, supporters have come to help build pit houses and permaculture areas. The pit houses are located along the new route of the Pacific Trails fracking pipeline. The company has changed the route of the original proposal since members of the Wet'suwet'en built a log cabin along the original route. The fact that the company has changed the route of their pipeline is clearly a sign of success.

That is the first thing that came to mind when I took a drive down Highway 567, just 20 minutes northwest of Calgary, which locals call Frack Alley. "But that's not even the worst of it!" says a local resident who moved to the area a few years ago for her retirement. "In a few weeks, this single lane highway will be filled with industry trucks driving at hundreds of miles per hour. It is so dangerous. I don't even use it."

But that is not the only reason she avoids the road. "I can't even breathe when I drive down Frack Alley in high season. Right now it is not as bad." Residents and local ranchers have experienced hair loss, burning scalps, asthma, cancers, and itchy eyes.

As expected, people aren't very happy with the WTO decision this week reaffirming the illegality (under global trade rules) of local content requirements in the Ontario Green Energy Act. The WTO Appellate Body, which has a final say in trade disputes between countries, agreed with a WTO panel report on December 19 that the high local content quotas on solar and wind components (up to 60 per cent) discriminate against products manufactured elsewhere. Japan and the European Union were the complainants in the WTO case, which has attracted global attention for the threat this final decision will create for similar local content rules on energy, transit and other types of government spending around the world.