Ontario government announces Highway-174 deal with the City of Ottawa
Local
CTV News: Premier Doug Ford announced on March 28 that Highway 174 will be coming into the custody of the Ontario government after 25 years.
Ford made the announcement in a speech at the Shaw Centre when he was a guest at the Mayor’s Breakfast Series.
The announcement was made alongside a new, detailed $543-million agreement between the Ontario government and the City of Ottawa. Highway 174 was previously the responsibility of the municipality. Once the acquisition occurs, it will then become the responsibility of the Ontario government.
Ford’s new Highway 174 deal also includes a new interchange at Barnsdale Road, which provides a nine-kilometre stretch of highway between the Fallowfield and Bankfield roads interchange in the city’s south end.
Other details of the agreement include provincial support for the repair and upgrade of the city’s major connecting routes and rural roads and opening a new Ottawa Police Service Neighbourhood Operations Centre in the Rideau Centre.
National
CBC News: Some Quebec families are struggling with a delay in receiving the death certificates of their loved ones, which means executors are unable to access money, sell property or pay taxes.
Lauma Cenne lost her husband at the end of December, however, she is still waiting for his death certificate.
Cenne’s husband, Michael Pinsonneault, was a prolific musician and a professor at Concordia University. He died from a rare form of appendix cancer.
Without Pinsonneault’s death certificate, Cenne can’t receive any of her husband’s paperwork. She currently cannot complete his taxes, receive his death benefit or open an account to deposit his estate cheques, all of which have put a big strain on her finances.
“All through February, every evening I’m looking at the bank account even though I know nothing’s changing,” said Cenne, who gave up her job to care for Pinsonneault for about six months before his death.
The issue occurred back in 2019 as well, leaving grieving families without death certificates for months on end.
According to the ministry, it now takes, on average, 40 to 45 working days to register a death in Quebec. The estimated wait time does not include holidays, weekends or any time required if documents are incomplete or do not match what the government has on file.
International
CBC News: After the Moscow concert hall attack, Russian authorities have officially charged four men from Tajikistan with terrorism.
Following the charge, Central Asian migrants have reportedly been targeted by Russian authorities in workplace raids. They have also reported Russian authorities using hateful comments towards them, and some cases of violence being instigated.
Earlier this week, on March 27, video surfaced of Russian authorities detaining migrants working at a warehouse near Moscow. The images taken from the event show workers being herded and led away by police.
Russia’s economy relies on migrant workers for their construction and service industries. Immigrant advocacy groups in Russia note that the migrant population is already marginalized with more acts occurring since the attack.
