Displaying items by tag: Ontario

On 24 April, prime minister Justin Trudeau visited a flood evacuation centre in Quebec where 300+ people were sheltering from floodwaters caused by spring rains and a thaw which affected thousands of homes in the province. Authorities are monitoring water levels as rain continues, and water levels across the region are not expected to peak until 26-27 April. Soldiers stacked sandbags and built dykes as floodwaters kept rising from 22 April onwards. Roads were closed as rivers expanded. Premier François Legault indicated that Quebec may offer incentives for people to move out of areas that flood every year permanently. ‘If we have to force people to move, we will have to do it.’ The Canadian Red Cross has a disaster relief fund to help residents rebuild their homes. The provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario are also waterlogged. Soldiers have been deployed to help with sandbagging in communities affected along the St John River. 55 roads and bridges are affected, with 36 of them either closed or partially closed. See

More than ten million Britons are at a higher risk of dementia because they live near a busy road, scientists have concluded. Those living in big cities are up to 12 per cent more likely to develop dementia as a result of traffic fumes, according to a study of more than six million people in Ontario, Canada. The closer people live to heavy traffic, the higher the risk. The scientists said that their findings were ‘of real public health significance’. They called for homes to be built further away from traffic, and for levels of traffic-related air pollution to be further reduced. Half the population of Ontario lives within 200 metres of a busy road, and 20 per cent within fifty metres: these figures are likely to be higher in Britain.