March 21–27, 2026
A Crossing Guard Was Killed in Barrhaven. The City Stopped.
The story that shook Ottawa this week started early Monday morning in a quiet Barrhaven intersection. Peter Clark, a 55-year-old school crossing guard, was struck by a pickup truck around 8:20 a.m. while on duty at Cedarview Road and Kennevale Drive, near Mary Honeywell Elementary School. The driver fled the scene. CBC News
Clark was rushed to hospital but didn’t make it. Flags were lowered to half-mast at Ottawa City Hall, and the Ottawa Safety Council, which recruits and trains crossing guards for local school boards, said it was focused on supporting staff impacted by the tragedy, including arranging grief counselling. CBC News The timing made it worse — it happened on Crossing Guard Awareness Day.
The grief was immediate and widespread. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called it “absolutely heartbreaking.” Prime Minister Mark Carney, who represents the federal riding of Nepean which includes Barrhaven, also paid tribute, saying his thoughts were with Clark’s family and friends. CP24
By Tuesday, police had made an arrest. Xzander Wright, 19 years old, appeared in court via video on Wednesday afternoon, charged with failing to stop after a fatal accident. He remained in custody until his next court appearance Friday. CBC News The investigation is ongoing. A community memorial has been growing at the intersection where Clark died.
The Ontario Budget Dropped — and Ottawa Got Mostly Nothing
Thursday was provincial budget day, and for Ottawa specifically, it was largely a disappointment. The Ford government’s eighth budget, titled “A Plan to Protect Ontario,” was silent on Premier Doug Ford’s earlier campaign promise to upload Ottawa’s LRT, leaving the city with a growing transit funding gap and no relief in sight. CBC News
The province reaffirmed nearly a billion dollars to help the TTC buy new trains, and hundreds of millions more for GO Transit — all of it in the Greater Toronto Area. Ottawa’s transit system got nothing new. OC Transpo ended last year with a $52-million deficit as fare revenue fell short and other levels of government failed to come to the rescue — even worse than the $47 million transit deficit forecast mid-year. CBC News The city had built a $46-million “placeholder” into its 2026 budget hoping for provincial help. That help didn’t come.
One local analyst put it bluntly: “If we had to name the big losers in this budget, I would tell you it’s the municipalities because they aren’t being spoken to directly. They aren’t even being told, ‘Look, there’s something coming, we have ideas.'” CBC News
The broader budget numbers are significant regardless. Ontario’s unemployment rate hit 7.6 per cent in February, and has been steadily rising since mid-2023, well before Trump’s tariffs. The province lost nearly 40,000 jobs in the auto, steel and aluminum sectors in the second and third quarters of 2025. CBC News The government is projecting a $13.8 billion deficit for 2026-27 — far larger than the $7.8 billion previously forecast — while promising a return to surplus by 2028-29.
Opposition parties weren’t buying it. NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Ontarians want their government to lower rent and grocery costs, fix health care and education, and build affordable homes. Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner called out Highway 413, a tunnel under the 401 and Ontario Place as projects “so irresponsible that the government talks about them in the budget and never assigns dollar figures to them.” CBC News
Carter Yakemchuk’s Storybook NHL Debut
If Ottawa needed some good news this week, the Senators delivered it in spectacular fashion on Tuesday night in Detroit. Carter Yakemchuk got the call Monday night at his house in Belleville. He drove five and a half hours to Detroit, arrived at the hotel in the early hours of the morning and didn’t sleep much. Then, with no morning skate to help him prepare, the 20-year-old defenceman became the First Star in his NHL debut. NHL
Yakemchuk scored a second-period goal and added an assist as the Senators edged the Detroit Red Wings 3-2. His family had scrambled from Calgary to Toronto to Detroit to make it in time. CBC News
The Senators, who were last in the Atlantic Division just two months ago, are now on a 15-3-2 run and hold the second wild card in the Eastern Conference. NHL Captain Brady Tkachuk described the atmosphere as “almost like a first playoff game, with what’s at stake.” The win sent Ottawa leapfrogging both the Red Wings and the Islanders in the standings.
The fairy tale had one more chapter. Yakemchuk and Jorian Donovan, who also debuted that night, made history — Donovan and his father Shean Donovan became the first father-son duo to each play for the Senators. CBC News
Then on Thursday, the Senators hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins and lost 4-3 in a shootout CBC News, a reminder that the playoff push is still very much a work in progress with a handful of games left in the season.
Porter Airlines Is Coming to Ottawa From Hamilton
Some travel news that’s worth knowing if you move between Ottawa and southwestern Ontario. Porter Airlines is adding a new nonstop route connecting Hamilton and Ottawa starting June 22. Flights to Ottawa will depart Hamilton at 10:25 a.m. and 6:35 p.m., arriving in Ottawa at 11:29 a.m. and 7:39 p.m. Return flights leave Ottawa at 8:35 a.m. and 2 p.m. CBC News The new service is part of a broader Porter expansion across Canada tied to a newly redeveloped airport on Montreal’s South Shore.
Housing Costs Keep Climbing
The income required to purchase a home in Ottawa increased by more than $1,700 in February alone. CTVNews That number, quietly reported this week, is worth sitting with. Ottawa’s housing market has long been considered more stable and attainable than Toronto or Vancouver, but the gap is closing. The provincial HST rebate announced in Thursday’s budget applies to new homes valued up to $1 million — relevant for some Ottawa buyers, but it doesn’t touch the affordability math for most families already stretched thin by rising costs.
A Few Other Stories Worth Noting
The O-Train Confederation Line’s eastern extension to Trim Station is still on track to open this spring, after reaching a key construction milestone earlier this month — welcome news for a transit system that has taken its share of abuse for years of delays and breakdowns.
Algonquin College students staged a protest earlier this month after the school announced plans to suspend 30 academic programs, a fallout from the broader postsecondary funding crisis that the province’s $6.4 billion injection this week is meant to address — though it may come too late for some of those programs.
And Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa was forced to pause applications for its new affordable townhome project in Nepean after just one week, overwhelmed by demand. In its largest project to date, the organization is building homes for ownership by local families in need. The surge in applications tells you everything you need to know about where Ottawa’s housing pressure actually lives — not in the $1 million new-build bracket, but among the families who have no path to ownership at all.
Compiled from CBC Ottawa, CTV News Ottawa, TSN, NHL.com, and local sources. Week of March 21–27, 2026.
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