New Brunswick senator's bill would require Ottawa to pay for Chignecto Isthmus project
A New Brunswick senator has introduced a bill that would declare the narrow land link between his province and Nova Scotia a federal responsibility.
Sen. Jim Quinn introduced the Chignecto Isthmus Dykeland System Act in the Senate on Tuesday.
The bill would require Ottawa to fully finance a project aimed at strengthening the land link from climate change-related threats and raising a CN rail line.
The premiers of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have asked the federal government to fund the entire project, saying Ottawa has the constitutional responsibility for interprovincial trade.
But Ottawa disagrees and wants to share the cost, which has ballooned to nearly $700 million.
The Nova Scotia government has asked the province's Court of Appeal to determine who has jurisdiction over the system that protects the vital transportation link, although it could be months before a decision.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs welcomed Quinn's move when asked about it on Tuesday.
"We believe this is a federal responsibility to connect provinces," Higgs said. "This legislative reinforcement is fundamentally important and there's logic behind it."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2023.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Trudeau to announce temporary GST relief on select items heading into holidays
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will announce a two-month GST relief on select items heading into holidays to address affordability issues, sources confirm to CTV News.
'Ding-dong-ditch' prank leads to kidnapping, assault charges for Que. couple
A Saint-Sauveur couple was back in court on Wednesday, accused of attacking a teenager over a prank.
Border agency detained dozens of 'forced labour' cargo shipments. Now it's being sued
Canada's border agency says it has detained about 50 shipments of cargo over suspicions they were products of forced labour under rules introduced in 2020 — but only one was eventually determined to be in breach of the ban.
DEVELOPING International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas officials
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister and Hamas officials, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
Genetic evidence backs up COVID-19 origin theory that pandemic started in seafood market
A group of researchers say they have more evidence to suggest the COVID-19 pandemic started in a Chinese seafood market where it spread from infected animals to humans. The evidence is laid out in a recent study published in Cell, a scientific journal, nearly five years after the first known COVID-19 outbreak.
2 boys drowned and a deception that gripped the nation: Why the Susan Smith case is still intensely felt 30 years later
Inside Susan Smith’s car pulled from the bottom of a South Carolina lake in 1994 were the bodies of her two young boys, still strapped in their car seats, along with her wedding dress and photo album. Here's how the case unfolded.
REVIEW 'Gladiator II' review: Come see a man fight a monkey; stay for Denzel's devious villain
CTV film critic Richard Crouse says the follow-up to Best Picture Oscar winner 'Gladiator' is long on spectacle, but short on soul.
Donald Trump picks former U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra as ambassador to Canada
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated former diplomat and U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra to be the American ambassador to Canada.
'It changed my life': Montreal-area woman learning how to walk after being hit by stray bullet
A 24-year-old woman is learning how to walk again after being shot while lying in her bed in Repentigny, Que.