Five stories in the news for Tuesday, June 6
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BARACK OBAMA IN MONTREAL TODAY
Former U.S. president Barack Obama will be in Montreal today to deliver a keynote speech to a sold-out audience at the city's convention centre. It will be his first visit to Canada since he left the White House in January. What Obama will talk about hasn't been revealed, but he's been given "carte blanche" by his hosts, the Montreal Board of Trade. There were 6,000 tickets in all, and those destined for the general public sold out in less than 15 minutes.
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FREELAND TO MAKE FOREIGN POLICY SPEECH TODAY
Details of future foreign military deployments are expected to be unveiled when Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and defence chief General Jonathan Vance release the government's new blueprint for national defence. The table for that defence review will be set in a major foreign policy speech today by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. The government says the speech will affirm multilateralism and rules-based international systems, human rights, gender equality, and the fight against climate change.
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PUSH IS ON TO UNIONIZE WESTJET FLIGHT ATTENDANTS
A recent successful bid to unionize WestJet pilots has prompted a push to organize flight attendants at the airline. The airline, Canada's second-largest, has long prided itself on its relationship with its employees, whom it refers to as co-owners. But in recent weeks, WestJet has found itself the target of two unions wanting to represent its flight attendants — the WestJet Professional Flight Attendants Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees says it's considering launching its own campaign to unionize flight attendants.
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QUEBEC FIGHTS DISTRIBUTION OF BUSINESS DATA
A website owned by a U.K.-based company is fighting the Quebec government in court for prohibiting it from collecting public information on firms in the province and then making it available to help thwart fraud and other crime. OpenCorporates.com claims to have public information on 125 million companies in 120 jurisdictions. It is petitioning Quebec Superior Court to declare it can legally collect, publish and distribute the public data found in the province's business registry. Journalists around the world have used OpenCorporates to write articles on fraud and money-laundering, such as the recent Panama Papers scandal, which exposed how multinationals hide cash in offshore tax havens.
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URUGUAY BLAZING TRAIL ON MARIJUANA, ENVOY SAYS
Uruguay's envoy to Ottawa says his small South American country has opened up some breathing room for marijuana legalization within international treaties that have outlawed recreational pot for decades. Ambassador Martin Vidal credits his country, the first to legalize recreational cannabis at a national level, as something of a trailblazer for countries like Canada that are planning to embark on the same path. The Trudeau government introduced legislation in April with a goal of legalizing and regulating the use of recreational marijuana by July 2018.
The Canadian Press
