Montreal Metropolitan Airport says its new terminal will open in a few months as it gets ready to welcome commercial flights.
The airport said Tuesday that its new terminal will open on June 15, and that the start of commercial flights at the regional airport will be a “major advantage” for passengers.
“Once open the terminal will the host operations of Porter Airlines and Pascan Aviation, offering flights connecting Canadian destinations from coast to coast. The terminal will also be able to welcome additional carriers in the future,” it said in a news release.
“Many major cities around the world already rely on a network of complementary airports to meet the air travel needs of residents and visitors. Montreal now joins this list with the new terminal at MET which aims to become the airport of choice for direct flights operated exclusively using quieter, more fuel-efficient single-aisle aircraft.”
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The terminal itself is designed, built and operated by YHU Infrastructure Partners. It covers 21,000 square metres and features nine boarding bridges and a waiting lounge with 900 seats.
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Its retail lineup will be entirely Quebec-based and will include a Bâton Rouge restaurant, a Café Dépôt and a convenience and travel goods store.
The terminal also incorporates contemporary nods to the historic visit of the R-100 airship in 1930, when its arrival in Saint-Hubert drew massive crowds and symbolized the technological daring of the era, the release states.
Opened in 1927, Saint-Hubert Airport — now MET (Montreal Metropolitan Airport) — is Canada’s oldest airport and served as Montreal’s main airport for many years.
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Commercial flights were moved to Dorval in 1940 so the airport could be fully dedicated to the Second World War effort, the release added.
The two Air Canada pilots killed in a deadly crash after their plane collided with a firetruck at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night have been identified as Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther.
Forest was identified through a Facebook post from the city of Coteau-du-Lac, a community in Quebec.
“The City of Coteau-du-Lac and the members of the municipal council wish to extend their most sincere condolences to his family, loved ones, and friends. We wish them all the comfort they need to get through this ordeal,” the post, originally in French, reads.
Gunther was the first officer on the flight, according to a statement from Seneca College.
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“Seneca mourns the loss of alumnus Mackenzie Gunther in the aviation accident at LaGuardia Airport in New York yesterday,” the statement reads.
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“Gunther graduated from the Honours Bachelor of Aviation Technology (FPR) program in 2023. Through the Jazz Aviation Pathways Program, he joined Jazz Aviation immediately after graduation and began his professional flying career.”
NTSB provides update on Air Canada collision, says investigation could take ‘days’
The flight was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members, with more than 40 people hospitalized following the crash.
The two occupants of the fire truck were taken to hospital but are expected to be released.
The crash caused LaGuardia — the New York region’s third busiest flight hub — to shut down during what was already a disruptive time at American airports because of a partial government shutdown.
The accident remains under investigation by U.S. authorities.
The federal government is running out of time to clear the backlog of public service pay transactions under the old Phoenix system, if it wants to avoid infecting the new payroll system with similar errors, Canada’s auditor general said in a new report on Monday.
The federal government is working to replace the error-prone Phoenix with a new system, Dayforce, and all departments and agencies are expected to move to the new platform by March 2031.
A new report from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada released Monday said the government has made “limited progress” on eliminating a backlog of pay transactions that stood at more than 233,000 and affected at least 133,000 employees as of Sept. 30, 2025.
The backlog includes all transactions that were not processed within service standards.
“This is very important because if the backlog is not cleared before the transition to Dayforce, there is a risk that existing errors will carry over and undermine the effectiveness of the new system,” said the report.
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Federal workers rally outside Liberal event over Phoenix pay system problems
The report said the government earlier this year shortened the timeline for bringing departments and agencies under Dayforce by about three years, which “significantly” reduced the time available to clear the backlog.
It said this was done in part to mitigate the “complexities and costs” of operating two pay systems at the same time for several years.
“It will be important for Public Services and Procurement Canada to identify early on, monitor regularly, and mitigate the risks that a shortened schedule could create so as to avoid pay issues similar to the ones experienced from the deployment of Phoenix,” the report said.
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The Phoenix pay system, introduced in 2016, centralized pay services for most federal employees. Some public servants have since faced significant delays in receiving payments, while others have been underpaid, overpaid, or not paid at all.
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The report concluded that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat had made “slow progress” on simplifying pay rules.
The report said Public Services and Procurement Canada has been customizing Dayforce to work without simplified pay rules. It said the government has asked Dayforce to develop three custom applications that would cost Ottawa about $4 million per year.
“Officials told us this was done so that the slow progress in simplification would not hinder the implementation of the new pay system,” the report said.
The report also said that while the government has estimated replacing Phoenix with Dayforce will cost more than $4.2 billion, preliminary estimates did not include costs for departments and agencies to transition to the new system.
The report added that in 2025, Public Services and Procurement Canada received $565.9 million in funding for two years to configure and test Dayforce for implementation.
The report said that as of September 2025, the government was developing detailed cost estimates.
Liberals blame Harper government for troubled Phoenix pay system
At a news conference on Monday, Auditor General Karen Hogan said the $4.2 billion cost estimate to transition to Dayforce is “rough” and she expects the actual cost to be higher.
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“I think this is an opportunity for the government to really think differently here and not just think in silos,” Hogan said.
“Think about the fact that every single department and agency will have to change the way they work, change their processes and onboard, and that comes at a cost.”
Joël Lightbound, minister of government transformation, public works and procurement, told reporters Monday that from 2018 until 2023, the government has invested $280 million to replace Phoenix with a new system, with $566 million budgeted into 2027.
“As for the detailed costing of the transition, this is being worked on at the officials level right now,” said Lightbound, who added that he accepted the auditor general’s findings.
He said it’s clear the system needs to be free of errors before the transition and there is still work to do.
In early 2023, the auditor’s report said, Public Services and Procurement Canada set a target of eliminating the backlog of all pay transactions that were one year old or older by March 2026. The auditor reports that, since then, the department’s internal reports through September 2025 have indicated it won’t meet the target.
Liberals still working to clear backlog from Phoenix pay system
More recently, the report said, the federal government has changed its approach from eliminating transactions older than a year to balancing three priorities.
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They are: eliminating the backlog for the first departments and agencies to adopt Dayforce; processing all new transactions within service standards; and gradually eliminating the backlog for all other departments and agencies, starting with the oldest transactions that have the most financial impact.
The first departments and agencies expected to take on Dayforce in 2027 include the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Shared Services Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada.
The report said the government didn’t fully assess the potential downside of its plan to eliminate the overall backlog, starting with the first departments to adopt Dayforce.
It said the government should assess how the departments that are taking on Dayforce later will be affected and consider how future events — like a drop in the number of federal public servants — could affect the number of new pay transactions.
The chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) says he believes his organization followed appropriate financial procedures and is willing to pursue legal action after being asked by the federal government to repay millions of dollars in spending.
Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) sent a letter dated March 12 to Bobby Cameron and FSIN CEO Martin Paul detailing lines of ineligible and unsupported expenses totalling $27.6 million between April 2019 and March 2024.
The letter is in response to the findings of a forensic audit conducted by KPMG that reviewed the FSIN’s use of federal funding to assess compliance with terms and conditions and accountability standards.
Findings from this audit were released by the ISC last fall, noting $34 million in questionable transactions.
“We fully believe that we don’t have to repay a dime, so that’s what we believe,” Cameron said at a news conference on Monday.
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In a statement to Global News, ISC confirmed it sent the letter to FSIN, adding that it has processes in place to ensure public funds are managed in accordance with funding agreements.
“Indigenous Peoples, and all people in Canada, deserve accountability for the use of public funds,” the statement said.
Following an audit, the ISC said it communicates its findings to the funding recipient and later works with them on any recommendations and “potential recoveries.”
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“We are unable to disclose whether any sanctions or monetary recoveries are being pursued, as this information relates to contractual obligations between Canada and the audit recipient,” the ISC said in its statement.
In the letter, the ISC provided a table of ineligible and unsupported expenses found in the audit.
COVID-19-related expenditures make up most of the unsupported costs, totalling more than $23.2 million. The ISC said in its letter that this spending line was largely due to a lack of documentation to validate purchases of personal protective equipment, along with their delivery and distribution to First Nations.
The FSIN, which represents 74 Saskatchewan First Nations, held a news conference in Saskatoon on Monday, inviting only Global News and one other news publication.
At the conference, Cameron defended his organization’s spending, saying it was to meet the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time.
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“We want to say we did it for the proper reasons, the right reasons, and we’ll continue to do it that way, as the Creator sees fit,” he said.
“We have strict financial approvals that we follow from day one, and that’s what we believe.”
Other areas of major spending that were deemed ineligible for federal funding include administration costs, totalling over $1.9 million, and $800,000 for a new office building.
“This is a direct shot at all First Nations and organizations when they say you can’t spend your admin dollars on certain things,” Cameron said.
The letter also notes that fleet vehicles totalling $1.2 million were purchased using administrative fees and not under programs through which the purchases would be eligible.
In the itemized list of spending, 21 vehicles were purchased between 2021 and 2023, ranging in price from $28,000 to $77,000.
Cameron said these purchases reflect the mileage travelled with the vehicles.
“You’ve got to understand, we probably put 10,000 kilometres a month on any given month,” he said. “The roads that we drive on are pretty brutal at times. The suspension really takes a hit.”
Rob Louie, founder and president of the Band Members Alliance and Advocacy Association of Canada, shared the letter online after a whistleblower provided it.
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Louie said the letter reconfirms his ongoing concerns.
“The numbers don’t lie,” Louie told Global News in an interview.
“If this happened at the Saskatchewan government or any other white organization, you know that heads would roll, people would be fired, and people sure as heck would not be re-elected back into that organization.”
The forensic audit was prompted after ISC’s assessment and investigation services branch received allegations about a lack of transparency over FSIN’s expenditures, including COVID-19 and travel, as well as payments made to a former employee and other claims.
The FSIN has until April 2 to respond to the ISC or dispute the calculations of the audit, according to the letter.
Crews made good progress over the weekend and into Monday clearing debris from a mudslide in Coquitlam, B.C., last week, but a city official says uncertainty looms with more rain the forecast.
Jaime Boan, Coquitlam’s general manager of engineering and public works, said the mudslide completely covered a portion of Pipeline Road with mud, logs and debris after a deluge of heavy rain last week.
He said Monday that the situation was “quite different,” after crews tackled the slide area beginning on Saturday.
“It was a big job,” Boan said. “There was a lot of material that came down and there’s still a lot of uncertainty.
“Essentially we are not permitting any public up into that area, including the residents, until we would get that clearance from the geotechnical engineer, because we need to ensure it is going to be safe.”
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The city said Friday that the slide had affected four homes and two industrial properties, and Coquitlam Search and Rescue had to airlift stranded residents and their pets out of the area.
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Boan said it was expected that the road would be cleared enough by the end of Monday for some single-lane traffic to pass through, but he said there’s still material to clear.
“The worry is that more material could still come down with further rain,” he said. “We understand it’s been tough for those residents affected and certainly they’ve been wanting to get back up there to their houses to collect things, but we are having to ensure safety.”
Environment Canada’s forecast for Coquitlam predicts between 15 and 25 millimetres of rain falling on Tuesday, with more possible on Wednesday, and sunny skies on the way later this week.
Boan said the road was “completely covered” in logs, mud and debris on Friday after the mountainous area got more than 300 millimetres of rain.
He said the cause of the landslide is still under investigation, but “extreme weather events” trigger landslide risks in upper mountainous areas.
“I think we need to get more clarity and understanding of what caused this particular landslide,” he said.
“We’ve been through landslides before. We’ve got a pretty good system in place, which is why this has gone well. You know, emergency crews were able to get the residents out very, very quickly.
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“I’d say from that perspective, it actually has gone extremely well.”
Two months after Wetaskiwin Mayor Joe Branco was banned from city hall, little information has been revealed as to why the decision was made in the central Alberta city.
Joe Branco hired Robert Noce, and Edmonton-based lawyer with Miller Thomson LLP, in early February.
Noce requested to have the investigation report by city’s lawyer that led to council’s decision to ban Branco, but he says he still doesn’t have it.
“I want to see what exactly the allegations were. I want to see the type of investigation the municipality, specifically the city manager, undertook,” Noce says.
“The municipality has been very tight-lipped with me in terms of providing me with any particulars.”
Why is the mayor of Wetaskiwin not allowed in city hall?
The City of Wetaskiwin has released a statement on March 20 that it said was in response to recent news articles and social media posts — but it does little to clarify the mysterious situation that has been ongoing for months.
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The statement says, in part:
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“The city wishes to clarify that the Mayor’s access to City Hall has been restricted in response to confidential personnel matters that cannot be discussed under the Protection of Privacy Act (POPA). With respect to the recent comments about the request for records from the Mayor’s legal counsel, these records cannot be provided in accordance with the city’s legal obligations under the Protection of Privacy Act (POPA) and the Municipal Government Act (MGA).”
The city says the privacy and municipal government laws require it to protect personal information and matters discussed in closed council sessions. It also says it continues to consult with legal counsel on the matter.
“Accordingly, at this time, the city will not be providing further comments,” the statement reads.
Wetaskiwin council stays silent on mayor’s ban from city hall
Noce said once he has the report he’s requested and knows the facts of the investigation, they can begin having discussions on how the mayor can return to city hall.
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Since Branco was banned from city hall and from attending city council meeting in person nearly two months ago, Global News has received reports of continuous public speculation and scrutiny of the council’s silence around the situation.
City councillors and administration held a special meeting on March 2 to discuss threats that councillors and city staff had been receiving.
A motion to bring in a third-party contractor to investigate the threats and guide council in dealing with the situation was presented during a council meeting on March 10.
The motion was tabled to be discussed in the next council meeting on March 24.
Four people in B.C. died in separate avalanches on Sunday.
Three heli-skiers were killed when they were caught in an avalanche on the Iridium Shoulder ski run on Mount Knauss, north of Terrace.
RCMP said search and rescue crews were activated at 1:30 p.m. and officers and Emergency Health Services were dispatched to a local lodge.
A fourth skier was also caught up in the avalanche, but was airlifted off the mountain with serious injuries and taken to a nearby hospital.
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The remaining three people were confirmed to have died and they were recovered from the mountain, police said.
The second fatal slide occurred just a few hours later in a remote corner of northwestern B.C., near the Canada-U.S. border close to Skagway, AK.
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Atlin RCMP received a Garmin SOS alert from a remote area near Klehini River and Pleasant Camp, approximately 350 kilometres west from Atlin.
RCMP said they were told an avalanche had occurred and one person was unconscious and CPR was being performed.
Atlin RCMP coordinated with Atlin Search and Rescue to plan an extraction, police said, and due to the remote location, a helicopter was utilized to access the area.
Upon arrival, responders confirmed that one person was dead.
Five people were extracted, police said, with the remaining four not hurt.
The BC Coroners Service is investigating the four deaths, RCMP said.
On Monday, Avalanche Canada classified the danger rating around Terrace as considerable and the area close to the B.C. / U.S. border as moderate.
A petition opposing the construction of Bell’s AI Fabric Data Centre has been circulating over the past month, steadily gaining traction.
The petition was created by 14-year-old concerned Regina resident, Aya Merroche, and as of Monday had collected nearly 11,000 signatures.
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Many of the signatories left comments detailing concerns about noise, water use, environmental impacts, power consumption and the ethics of artificial intelligence.
Global News spoke with Dr. Simon Enoch, who has been studying the growing community backlash against Data Centres across North America, to find out what residents should be worried about.
No-pet clauses have long been the norm for tenants in Quebec and even considered legal.
But following a new ruling by the province’s housing tribunal, after a challenge by a tenant to a no-pet clause in their lease, the door may soon be open for all pet owners.
“We were arguing that the no-pet clause that was in their lease was against their fundamental rights, that are in the charter of rights,” said Kimmyanne Brown, the tenant’s lawyer.
In the March 12 ruling, the judge rejected the landlord’s attempt to terminate the lease of the tenant and allowed her to stay in her rental unit with her dog.
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The tribunal concluded that the clause indeed violates Articles 1 and 5 of the Charter, which guarantees respect for a person’s dignity, freedom and privacy.
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“It’s only one decision, it’s only regarding a specific case, but we’re hoping it’s going to set an important precedent for tenants rights,” Brown said.
The Montreal SPCA, which has supported the case since 2023, says the implications could reach much further, arguing lease restrictions banning animals in rental units are one of the leading reasons pets end up in shelters.
“Essentially, what the court is saying is that no-pet clauses are archaic and outdated and no longer in sync with how we as a society today relate to animals,” said Sophie Gaillard, director of animal advocacy and legal and government affairs at the Montreal SPCA.
The Montreal SPCA has been fighting to ban no-pet clauses in leases for over a decade.
More than half of all Quebec families now include a pet, the organization says, and nearly two animals a day are brought to the shelter because of challenges related to finding a home that allows them.
While the ruling can still be appealed, advocates stress that it could mark an important turning point — and many hope it will be the key to striking down a province-wide tradition of allowing landlords to ban pets from their tenant’s premises.
“We have a very clear decision that highlights the fact that these clauses are problematic, not just for animals and shelters, but also from a human rights perspective,” Gaillard said.
Mounties are still searching for a suspect and a motive in a shooting on a Highway 2, south of Edmonton, earlier this month that left a man dead.
Alberta RCMP said the shooting happened south of Leduc, near Township Road 490, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 14.
Three friends were headed to the mountains via the QEII that Saturday afternoon when a pickup truck pulled up beside their Honda Civic.
Witnesses saw the truck pull up beside a car and then speed off.
According to the two survivors of the shooting, a person in the truck made a hand gesture toward them, something resembling a peace sign.
They said their friend and the car’s driver, 22-year-old Birinder Singh, waved back.
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Passengers recount harrowing QEII drive-by shooting that killed their friend
Moments later, someone in the truck opened fire and a bullet struck Singh in the neck. The friends took control of the steering wheel and pulled the car over to the side of the highway. Singh died in the vehicle from blood loss.
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According to the friends, Singh moved from India to Brampton, Ont., three years ago as an international student and studied business administration before relocating to Edmonton in October.
Since then, Singh had been working in construction, installing siding.
He was on his way to see the Canadian Rockies for the first time when he was killed.
RCMP spokesman Cpl. Troy Savinkoff said investigators located the truck, a Grey 2022 Ford F-150, last week but the suspect remains at large as police continue to determine what led to the shooting.
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Man killed in drive-by shooting on QEII near Leduc, RCMP searching for suspect truck
