Bicycle Mechanic: Exhusband

Stable Hand Dept: The Russian immigrant, who shares custody of her four children with her exhusband, is awaiting her first welfare cheque, according to Montreal Gazette. "People are nicer - they're less stressed out than in Montreal," she says and irina, 34, her two-year-old daughter bundled up in a stroller, fills her shopping bag with dinner rolls and a baguette. Irina moved to Laval two years ago. She likes the suburb's wide boulevards and leafy streets - but making ends meet here is no easier than it was in Montreal, where the former bicycle mechanic and stable-hand lived for nine years. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.