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Over three days last week in Vancouver, lawyers for the Hupacasath First Nation and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade argued before a federal court judge on whether the government has a duty to consult First Nations before ratifying international treaties such as the Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (FIPA) with China. The landmark case exposes the extra-legal rights (to profit) that foreign companies have under Canadian investment treaties, and how those rights could undermine First Nations governance and Indigenous rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

The Réseau québécois sur l'intégration continentale (RQIC) has obtained confidential new information related to ongoing Canada-European Union free trade negotiations, including an update on Quebec's procurement offer which includes coverage of Hydro-Quebec.

Quebec negotiator Pierre-Marc Johnson has always said that Hydro-Quebec will be excluded from procurement rules in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement that ban local preferences on public spending. But according to RQIC's reading of a new CETA leak, more than 35 per cent of contracts by the energy utility, equivalent to $390 million in public spending annually, are actually covered.

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Ali Vervaeke (Atlantic organizing assistant) and I, along with friends and allies, travelled to New Brunswick to support the ongoing protests against SWN Resources' seismic testing (done in preparation for fracking, to determine how much shale gas might be present) along the 126 in Kent County, New Brunswick.

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What's stopping Canada from becoming more of a patchwork health-care system where some provinces or territories can care for their residents more than others? At this point, nothing.

Canada's Health Accords which tie national benchmarks and standards to dollars from the federal government to the provinces and territories, is the only method government has to ensure all Canadians get the best quality of care regardless of where they live.

The Council of Canadians shares this statement from the Our World is Not For Sale Network, to which it is a member. For more information on TRIPS, the LDC transition period, and efforts in the past year to secure a permanent exemption from intellectual property rules for least developed countries at the WTO, see weblinks underneath the statement. To read about Canada's position at the WTO, see Mark Fried's (Oxfam Canada) May 18 Huffington Post article, Why Are We Bullying The World's Poorest Countries?

The Council of Canadians was one of 125 global movements and civil society groups to endorse this statement of solidarity with efforts in Latin America, led by the Ecuador government, to reform the investment arbitration system. This corporate-biased regime, found in most Canadian free trade agreements with Latin America and globally, as well as in treaties like the Canada-China FIPA, NAFTA and proposed for the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, is being challenged globally as an assault on democracy that must be radically changed or dismantled.

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The federal government has not yet tabled a human rights impact assessment of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement -- an annual requirement of the still controversial deal. This could be because Parliament was not sitting that week. Or it could signify a lack of interest in taking seriously the real impacts that increased trade and investment can have on human rights, Indigenous rights and the environment. Prime Minister Harper was just in Colombia to pursue even more free trade through the Pacific Alliance but mining seemed to be the only thing on his mind.

In a timely reminder of where the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement goes terribly wrong, a new report out of British Columbia explains the importance of "buy local" policies to the strength of communities. The report, The Power of Purchasing: The Economic Impacts of Local Procurement, is a co-production of the Columbia Institute, LOCO BC and ISIS Research Centre. Its astounding, though not surprising, main finding is that municipal purchasing from locally-based suppliers "creates nearly twice as much benefit to the local economy as buying from multinational chains."