We’re starting tonight’s newsletter with a closer at the Mackenzie Valley Highway project.

Since the Carney government announced plans to designate the Mackenzie Valley Highway as being in the national interest, Northwest Territories Deputy Premier Caroline Wawzonek says she’s had to field a lot of questions about what that designation actually brings.

“There’s a sense of, what does this even do? Why does it matter?” she told iPolitics.

Under the Building Canada Act, projects with a national interest designation can access a regulatory shortcut: all federal approvals are bundled into a single conditions document instead of requiring separate permits from different departments.

Ottawa intends to consult on designation of three projects, including the Mackenzie Valley Highway, over the summer before officially designating in the fall.

But the federal government has very limited power when it comes to fast-tracking the environmental assessment of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, as the review falls under the purview of independent co-management boards created out of modern land claim agreements.

Aya Dufour has more. 

Also, the MP overseeing Canada’s foreign aid says Ottawa will match up to $4 million in public donations for Venezuelans still reeling from earthquakes, in addition to funding the federal government announced last week.

“Canadians really want to step up and really have a strong affinity and connection to the people of Venezuela,” Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international development, told The Canadian Press.

Rare double earthquakes struck northern Venezuela 39 seconds apart last Wednesday. Officials reported Monday that more than 1,700 had been killed. Also Monday, a 4.6 magnitude aftershock occurred in what was already a disaster zone in La Guaira state.

Sarai said Ottawa will double donations the public makes to some Canadian charities supporting Venezuelans. Canada will match up to $2 million in donations made to both the Canadian Red Cross and the Humanitarian Coalition of a dozen aid organizations, for a total of $4 million.

The Canadian Press got this one. 

Keeping up with the Ottawa mayoral race? Alex Lawson sat down with iPolitics to discuss his campaign platforms.

Ottawa mayoral candidate Alex Lawson’s campaign office sits steps away from a community health centre that provides services for people who struggle with substance use – a location he says was chosen deliberately. 

Instead of talking about homelessness, addiction and public safety from afar, Lawson said he wanted to see the challenges facing the city firsthand. He is running for mayor on a simple premise: city hall has become disconnected from the realities of everyday life in Ottawa. 

“You can’t solve a problem if you’re looking at it from a high level,” Lawson said in an interview with iPolitics. 

Lawson argues Ottawa’s response to homelessness and addiction has become too focused on managing crises. Instead, he said there’s a need for the city to shift its focus on expanding a “pathway to recovery.” 

Sydney Ko has more.

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Elsewhere, the US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

The president had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term that sought to deny automatic citizenship to the children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said this order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community,” wrote Roberts. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”

Roberts was joined by the liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett. The conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the judgment but dissented in part, arguing that the executive order violated federal law but not the constitution. The conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch filed dissenting opinions. The court’s writings in the ruling span 194 pages, nearly 90 of which were written by Thomas in dissent, his longest in his tenure on the court.

The Guardian has more. 

“Silencio” the rescuers scream turning towards the road with their fists up in the air, motioning to everyone to remain silent.

The vehicles on the road stop plying. People stop talking. The diggers fall silent.

A rescuer puts his ear to a hole they’ve just managed to drill through a concrete slab. Another one shines a torch into it.

They’re listening to see if they can hear any sounds of survivors calling from under the rubble of a 12-storey building that stood by the side of a busy road in the coastal town of La Guaira.

It’s one of the areas worst hit by the twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela on Wednesday last week and killed at least 1,700 people.

Interim President Delcy Rodríguez has called the earthquakes the “most brutal natural catastrophe” in Venezuela’s history.

Standing by the side of the collapsed structure, Miguel Oscar Nunez holds his breath, huddled together with other families who had loved ones in the building. Miguel’s only child – 34-year-old son Angel – lived in the building.

Read more from BBC. 

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

After beating South Africa over the weekend, Team Canada is heading for a match with Morocco this Saturday, and the city is looking into hosting a public watch party.

“We’re looking at maybe a big spot where everybody can gather and watch the game together on Saturday, so stay tuned, we should have some details of the next day or so,” Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said.

More from CTV.