Canada’s premiers met for their annual council of the federation meetings this week with just two of the five federally recognized indigenous institutions.
The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and Native Women’s Association of Canada sent representatives to the Wednesday pre-Council meetings that the five national organizations were invited to participate in — but the AFN, Inuit Tapirit Kanatami and Metis National Council all announced they would not be attending the meetings objecting to trivial inclusion in the meeting and not being involved in the main summit as representing indigneous people.

Parks Canada says it has reached an agreement to acquire a privately owned parcel of land in Ontario’s Georgian Bay area to expand the Bruce Peninsula National Park.
The 1,324-hectare property called Driftwood Cove includes 6.5 kilometres of uninterrupted shoreline and is home to at least 10 federally listed species at risk and dozens of ecologically, geologically and culturally significant cave systems
The funds for the purchase of the cove are coming from the 2018 federal budget, which included a $1.3 billion conservation fund.
The property is located in the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation.

 Firefighters battling active blazes in northeastern Ontario are now receiving help from fire crews from Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Shayne McCool, fire information officer with the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, says the increased manpower should help as more blazes are discovered.
He says 17 new forest fires were discovered on Wednesday, bringing the total number of active fires to 66.
He says 28 of them are not yet under control.

A controversial decision by the Ontario government to scrap the sex-education curriculum before a new one is in place has left school boards in limbo with just weeks to go before students return to classes.
The newly elected Progressive Conservative government has said students will continue to learn the 1998 curriculum until parents across the province have had a chance to weigh in on a new version.
The Ontario Public School Boards’ Association said they have yet to receive any direction from the Tory government on the issue.