Earlier Thursday, Denis Coderre tweeted that he was grateful to health minister Christian Dubé for helping with his parents’ vaccine registrations and now Dubé is denying he let Coderre pull his strings.
Friday morning, Coderre too is trying to back away from this misstep.
Thierry Henry has left CF Montreal not, as recently rumoured, to go coach an English team, but for family reasons.
In other soccer news, now that Quebec has withdrawn support for Montreal’s bit of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Ottawa has also backed away from the project.
A photo was posted on Twitter on Thursday showing that the premises of S.W. Welch’s bookstore on St-Viateur are now up for rent.
No no no!
It’s not closed yet!
No I didn’t! There’s still hope. But we all need to support Stephen and his family by dropping by, showing our love, and maybe picking up a great book.
Sorry, Taras, I thought that by posting that photo you were virtually conveying the situation.
I did not mean to imply you said something you did not intend. I’ve changed my post.
It may not be closed, but it certainly seems like the landlord is planning to rent the space, and we all know how unlikley it is they’ll abandon their plans…
I posted a call for support on a Plateau parenting group that has 2500+ members and to write to their city councillor. There should be a total moratorium on Shiller-Lavying during the pandemic.
Good move, Meezly.
Based on my observations, the political activism ratio is pretty low in that group, but there are some civic-minded parents there for sure, esp. if it affects their hood.
It goes beyond this single store. Shiller/Lavy is almost singlehandedly destroying the commercial nature of the neighbourhood. They did the same thing to Cagibi, cranking up their rent, driving them out and leaving the space empty for almost a year. There needs to be a change in the law so they don’t benefit from having an empty store front.
Can someone explain how they /benefit/ from keeping the store empty?
I always thought they jacked up the rent simply to make more profit. The risk of leaving it empty was just part of the waiting game for the deeper pockets to show up.
My understanding is they also get a big tax break while the store remains empty, so there is no motivation for them to rent it and can thus do the strategy you mention.
Also, with real estate prices rising the way they are they’re making serious coin even without doing a damn thing.
@steph, basically they do not care about the day to day operations of the property as much as the return they stand to make selling the property, increase the revenue = increase the value. The losses they incur in the meantime will be tax deductible when they sell.
This is the kind of shit that makes you realize there are two worlds: one where people exchange their time and labour for money, and one where you turn money into more money because you can understand, or afford to pay people who understand, the kind of gibberish contained in JPM’s post.
@MarcG
That’s another great reason to simplify the tax code. We’d get to dump lots of excessively specific corporate welfare that only benefits those who can afford to pay lobby groups.
I like how the tweet says “There goes our neighbourhood” as if there was still any neighbourhood left on St-Viateur.
It may have suffered in recent years but it is still a beautiful, wonderful place and there is hope left to keep it that way.
Go see if you can find a better street in any other city in Canada. You may find a few but what we have is special and it is worth fighting for.
What tax breaks do landlords with empty rentals get?
Here’s what Alexander Norris said:
Quebec law unfortunately does not provide for controls over commercial rents. (Rent controls are under provincial jurisdiction.) A standing committee chaired by our colleague Mile End councillor Richard Ryan recently recommended that controls be placed on commercial leases in order to protect merchants against abusive rent hikes. That recommendation has been taken up by the city administration, with Plateau mayor Luc Rabouin, member of the executive committee responsible for economic development, announcing he intends to press the province on the issue.
He provided this article: https://journalmetro.com/…/locaux-vacants-vers-un…/
Unfortunately the city is reluctant to tax owners of empty storefronts because of the pandemic so once again Shiller-Lavy is protected from this for quite a while yet.
Thank you, Meezly!
What exactly is Luc Rabouin waiting for (“ with Plateau mayor Luc Rabouin, member of the executive committee responsible for economic development, announcing he intends to press the province on the issue”)?
(Though admittedly the prospects of Projet Mtl getting Qc to do anything are basically null.)
@JS: I’m not a tax lawyer, but I do not believe that there are any tax breaks for landlords with empty rentals. What people want are for these landlords to be subject to penalties.
As an individual, you can claim interest payments on money you borrow as a tax credit.
As a corporation, having a vacant property means its value is decreasing, so you can use that loss to offset income from other areas, thus decreasing the corporation’s income tax.
Vacant storefronts mean people are less likely to visit the neighbourhood, making it harder for other stores to survive, so they move – and small landlords who need that property rented because they otherwise cannot afford to pay the extremely high commercial property tax — or because they can’t afford their loans — are forced to sell, and the only ones who can buy have deep pockets.
I don’t follow Kevin when you say that the vacant property’s value is deceasing. You mean that the city’s tax evaluation of the property goes down?
I also do not follow where the loss is. The business will still have expenses coming in for the empty storefront. Can those expenses be applied to decrease the level of tax elsewhere? That still is not a loss, at least to me.
Tim
I’m not a tax lawyer either, but from what I’ve been told, a drop in the city’s evaluation is a drop in commercial taxes (benefitting big corps playing games) and a drop in perceived value means the asset is worth less (so is a write-down, offsetting other income) and so is worth less as a security for loans (hurting small owners with more restricted cash flow).
It’s accountant/lawyers doing the same kind of min-maxing that people do in RPG or video games.
Let’s get back to the issue at hand – supporting S.W. Welch.
Someone in my google group called ShillerLavy , pressed zero for reception to voice her outrage/opposition to the rent increase.
I did the same. The receptionist actually picked up, seemed very sympathetic and took down my name and number and my complaint. Now I hope Shiller-Lavy won’t sick their goons on me but I’m willing to take some risk to save my neighbourhood bookstore.
Shiller-Lavy’s number is 514 256 5050.
There’s a FB group of fed up residents: https://www.facebook.com/events/2888616944712419/?active_tab=about
The city is keeping up the pressure to put an end to hunting on the island of Montreal. One suburban mayor says if you can’t shoot animals on Mount Royal, you shouldn’t be allowed to on the West Island either.
LCN’s À vos affaires is questioning some of the supposed restaurateurs using food delivery services to sell meals from their private, uninspected kitchens. But this isn’t illegal under a certain threshold, as the article explains.
So it’s entirely legal, but LCN seems to have taken the editorial position that it shouldn’t be.
I’m not sure we should be depriving people of the means to make a living during a pandemic? Especially since most of these home kitchen restaurants are run by recent immigrants.
A man has been charged with sexual assault after an incident at a quarantine hotel, somewhere in town.
City hall unanimously voted on Tuesday to press Ottawa and Quebec City to regularize people without legal status living here. It is not right that our economy relies so much on the efforts of people who don’t even have residency or the rights that come with it, and I’m glad I live in a city with an administration that acknowledges this.
jeather 22:01 on 2021-02-25 Permalink
I tried to see if there were slots available here (I didn’t make an appointment, I just clicked through a few sites) and there is a lot of availability, so I’m not sure that Dube really did all that much if anything. I’m not a fan of either of them, but this seems like looking for something to be mad about. There are lots of real things to be mad about, not that Coderre (maybe) asked for help in getting his eligible parents appointments on a website that is not the most intuitive out there.
Kate 23:24 on 2021-02-25 Permalink
I don’t think it’s about being mad, it’s just interesting that Coderre (who may still have political ambitions) sees no problem in not only using connections, but openly boasting about it.
Kevin 23:51 on 2021-02-25 Permalink
Reading more of his tweets and La Presse’s article, it looks like he came across a problem with the software that wouldn’t let people put in required info, and so called someone on Dubé’s staff and the issue was fixed.
Sounds more like calling someone high up to report a tech problem, if anyone wants to give someone the benefit of the doubt
jeather 10:17 on 2021-02-26 Permalink
“Hey look, unlike Plante, the provincial government doesn’t hate ME” could be a selling point, maybe.
Meezly 10:35 on 2021-02-26 Permalink
Vaccine-humble-bragging and vaccine-shaming — trending in 2021.