Quebec says it is opening its doors to refugees from Ukraine. They’ll have six months to learn enough French to communicate with the government, but at least Russians won’t be bombing them.
The Ukrainian flag is being flown at city hall and there was a demonstration Thursday in support of Ukraine.
Papa Legault, who got it wrong last year when he said you could get an apartment for $500 a month, did another pratfall this week when he said there was a law limiting rental increases to 1.28%. That’s only a guideline and has no legal force whatsoever.
This is the man running a government that’s constantly cheaping out on building social housing and doesn’t see why they should. Do you wonder why?
I assumed that if the tenant refuses the hike and it goes to court that the percentage calculated by the Regie will be used as a yardstick for the increase the landlord is trying to justify.
It has legal force if you contest your rent increase. Then the landlord needs to start a procedure (and pay $100) to enforce the higher rent. After a few months (Years? They’re probably are behind because of Covid) you will get a hearing in front of a judge where the landlord *under oath* needs to present reasons for the rent increase, like increased insurance premiums, property taxes and maintenance costs. If you win that case, your rent stays like it was, if you lose your rent will be retroactively increased and you’re probably on the hook for the $100 as well.
These are your rights as a tenant, but very few people do this because they want to keep an amicable relationship with their landlords. So many of my friends pay steep rent increases every year and just complain but don’t actively do anything about this. A 10% rent increase every year means your rent will nearly double in 7 years.
I’m a landlord, one of my tenants contested their rent increase and although it didn’t make me very happy*, I didn’t treat them any different than before. Being a landlord it a business and compared to the realized gains on the stock market not even a very good one. I also still use those guidelines every year, and my tenants can ask for the calculations. The guidelines were more of a law in the past, but AFAIK are still used for arbitration.
they lost their case, we had done a lot of expensive maintenance to the building and the 3% increase was deemed to be justified ($10 or so, they paid $350 rent). I didn’t like it because it took a lot of time, effort and anxiety. I had to go to the Stade Olympic twice and wait in line (back then you had to file in person), prepare paperwork etc. Fortunately it only happened once. (I’m not a perfect landlord, I have increased rents between tenants. But the old rent was always on the lease and my tenants could have contested it.)
@mare interesting perspective. The gains compared to the markets aren’t the same but presumably as a landlord you can leverage way more money into your investment (you put, what 20% down, get a mortgage for the rest on the basis of the rental income and you wind up with returns on the entire value of the property, instead of just throwing your 20% down payment into the market). Agreed that many tenants will just swallow a steep increase to not jeopardize their day-to-day. I would also assume a lot of tenants are reluctant to enter a multi-year process that could end with them owing a big lump sum payment if they lose. Easier to pay an extra $20 a month than to be on the hook for the same monthly amount that has accumulated over a few years.
it goes both ways.
My landlord wants to keep a good relation with me and accepts my contestation of rent increases yearly. It’s not worth HIS time to go fight it – I think I’m his only tenant that’s never been late in 10 years.
New lease rent increases are subject to the same calculation process. I think the calculation tool is worth looking at https://www.tal.gouv.qc.ca/fr/calcul-pour-la-fixation-de-loyer/outil-de-calcul over the single % recommendations.
steph, I am in a similar situation to yours.
Don’t forget the low literacy rate in Quebec – I bet a lot of people have no clue what their rights are or that the Regie even exists and terrible landlords take advantage of their ignorance.
Bill 96 hit a snag this week in committee when it was determined that the PQ hope of making it impossible to attend English-language CEGEP unless you already had the acquired right to go to school in English was scotched by the CAQ. However, there’s a silver lining, in that the law will be written to limit places at English CEGEPs forever. It doesn’t matter how much the population grows in future, only 30,834 students will be allowed to go to English CEGEP, forever and ever. Dawson won’t need to be enlarged, and no new money will be wasted on educating kids in English, which is obviously a dead language.
In addition, even the kids at anglo CEGEPs will have to take some of their courses in French.
Infuriating. Also, it would be nice to see the Franco CEGEPs actually improve the quality of education in their schools instead of hobbling the Anglo ones.
At least I can be content in knowing that my son will be prioritized to go to an English CEGEP with the top francophone students, which will increase the quality of education for all. It is like a free private school.
Thanks Quebec!
Petition in support of the expansion of Dawson College
English: https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-9477/index.html
French: https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-9477/index.html
Those three mandatory French courses in English CEGEPs better be French, gym, and gym.
@Phil disagree – as a working Montreal anglo product of the English school system (including Dawson! Love Dawson!), I wish I had access to more and better classes taught in French. Anyway, CEGEP gym classes are dope. I took golf. What a ridiculous sport/class. The prof was the coach of the men’s national team. We never left the gym. “A walk ruined,” as they say…
Which classes in French?
Chemistry? Physics? English literature?
Ideally it’d be three psych classes, because that’s where Parizeau should have dragged the province instead of going to the dentist.
Anything that would have involved more reading and writing in French. I get that for **reasons** the vast majority of Francophone Quebecers will never earn enough English at a young enough age to be really comfortable living and working in English; I regret that this is the case for most of us anglos – we should be ideal candidates for the most bilingual people on Earth, and yet…
@Joey
We are pretty bilingual in this city.
But people who can and do use French in their working lives don’t exclusively use French at home, and that makes a bunch of people upset.
I’m still trying to find out how this affects continuing education and adult education for English CEGEPs.
Like, if you’re an adult immigrant to Quebec, in an EI funded AEC for retraining, are you allowed to take it in English? Does a certain percentage of the course have to be taught in French now?
It really feels like a lot of the implications haven’t been thought through. Unlike university teachers, CEGEP teachers are employees of the Ministry. We have to sign a declaration as to whether we are willing to teach in French or English, which is really important because unlike a university professor with tenure, if a CEGEP teacher with permanence sees their program close, the Ministry has to find them a job placement or continue to pay their full salary for a few years. Many French speaking teachers claim to only be able to teach in English so that they can’t be forced to relocate outside of Montreal.
Really, the people that suffer most here will be the students – there are a lot of francophone students who go to Abbott because they live in the West Island or of-island to the west- the only French CEGEP in the West Island has a really limited number of programs, for instance there is no graphic design except at Abbott unless you take the ALC at Gérald-Godin but that’s not a professional training program with a stage, it’s pre-university. About a quarter of the students in my day program are francophones that went to French high schools. About 2/3 of my students in Cont Ed classes didn’t go to high school in Canada.
@Kevin agreed that we are pretty bilingual. But Montreal anglos should be the *most* bilingual people on the planet. And yet I don’t think I know any who are ready, willing and able to work in a completely francophone environment. Having supervisors who were francophone did wonders for my language development.
The SPVM is installing nine more security cameras, a policing method that was unwelcome when it first came to the Quartier Latin, but which is going almost unmentioned now, even with one being placed at Cabot Square. The force now has 42 eyes on the populace.
Update: Ted Rutland amplifies on my observation: “All of them are pointed at poor people, mostly the racialized poor. There will now be cameras in both Oscar Peterson and Nelson Mandela parks. Vile.”
I think 42 under counts the total number of spvm cameras because there are hundreds of SPVM traffic cams everywhere. These are also “security cameras.”
Raymond Lutz 14:09 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Hey, We will gladly welcome fleeing Azov Battalion members as we did in the past! The Jewish News of Northern California: Canada admits letting in 2,000 Ukrainian SS troopers
Kate 14:18 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
That was years ago, Raymond Lutz, and not germane to the situation at hand.
qatzelok 14:35 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
What is so different with the situation at hand?
The West’s recent relationship with Ukraine has been mainly “terrorism-funding.”
dhomas 14:55 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Have Russian bots taken over the regular commenter accounts? What’s going on here?
Tim S. 15:23 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
I learned a new word yesterday: “tankie” – basically westerners whose leftish leanings blind them to anything problematic about the USSR/Russia. Seems to explain what’s going on here.
qatzelok 15:36 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
You might need more than one word to understand the situation, Tim S.
Tim S. 15:44 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Q: don’t worry. As the grandson of a Ukrainian leftist, I’m pretty sure I understand the situation. You?
walkerp 15:48 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
This is getting as embarrassing as back in the Stalin years when the French leftists defended him right up until the bitter end.
There is a very simple principle at play here. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Kevin 16:59 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Tim S.
The tankies have now been joined by the Trumpists who are cheering that Russian TV is airing clips of their Great Leader praising the shirtless cowboy who uses a lot of Nair.
DeWolf 17:29 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Poor Russia, it had no choice but to invade! Just like the US had no choice to invade Iraq! /s
Tankies claim they are anti-imperialist yet support all kinds of imperialist aggression from Russia and China. It doesn’t make sense until you realize that in their world, the US is the only empire, and everything revolves around it like the earth around the sun.
Putin’s made himself very clear in his long speech that his ambition is to restore the Russian empire, but as long as it’s not an American empire it’s a-ok in the tankies’ book!
qatzelok 19:13 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
So “tankie” is used to smear people that don’t support war against China and Russia.
Got it.
Ian 19:19 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Do you prefer quisling?
walkerp 20:25 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Or fifth columnists.
Kevin 21:42 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Qatzelok
No, it smears people who support agression by Russia and China
nau 22:41 on 2022-02-24 Permalink
Let’s not dismiss q’s definition of tankie too quickly. Given their response, the leaders of the American empire clearly don’t want a war with Russia either, so why not allow q a moment to stand in tankie solidarity with them.
DeWolf 01:11 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Do you think the Bay of Pigs invasion was justified, qatzelok? After all, Cuba is right next door to Florida. The US had “no choice” but to attack. Same excuse Russia is using, although weirdly enough they aren’t attacking any countries that actually have NATO bases, so as usual with this sort of thing the excuse rings hollow. Not to mention it’s just one of many half-hearted excuses.
Bottom line is that Putin doesn’t think Ukraine should exist, as he said very clearly in his speech. There is no “war against Russia.” Russia invaded a sovereign country. It proactively started a war.
walkerp 08:34 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Nobody wants a war.
The problem with these weird “progressive” stalinists is that they argue that Russia is justified in invading Ukraine.
Even if the US had engineered the overthrow of Yanukovych in 2014, it still would not justify this invasion.
qatzelok 14:20 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
“Won’t anyone think of those poor Libyan students!”
**NATO destroys Libya**
Next meme…
DeWolf 14:33 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
So Russia is justified in destroying Ukraine because NATO and the US have done a lot of bad stuff through the years?
Pure whataboutism…
CE 15:06 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Cool ideology, bro.
Michael 15:18 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
Communist sympathizers are having a hard time explaining themselves right now.
They spent years saying “America Bad” and right now the best thing we have is a neighbor that has the largest military force the world has ever seen.
“NATO aggression” is a lie fed to the naive while he chokes Ukrainians to death with his hands.
Ant6n 17:24 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
I saw a bunch of this apologist stuff on Taylor noakes twitter account three days ago. It’s pretty jarring to see such bs.
walkerp 17:48 on 2022-02-25 Permalink
It really is.
Discouraging when we are aligned on so many things locally and then you have to wonder if they are just really stupid and ideological or actually a Russian assett (and possibly both).
nau 09:55 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
I doubt anyone posting here regularly is a Russian asset, and I don’t read either Raymond or qatzelok as stupid. Describing them as ideological suggests that some people aren’t ideological but I don’t think there’s anyone who isn’t. The world is too complicated for anyone to fully understand, and everybody consciously or otherwise uses ideological shortcuts to try to make sense of it. Where people differ is in how rigid they are with respect to their ideologies. For some people who have always seen themselves in the role of the person who has to remind most everyone else that America is hardly some straightforwardly benign force in the world, it can be hard for them to recognize that a moment like this is not one that requires making that particular point. I imagine (perhaps wrongly, I know little about them) q and R fall in that category. Beyond that, there are still lefties who have an authoritarian bent, who think the Castro or Chavez model gets the job done and somehow convince themselves that Putin and Xi are in the same mould, just with greater ability to stick it to the yanks.
MarcG 11:07 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
Isn’t Russia just another shitty capitalist state? Does ‘Communist’ just mean you’re not in bed with the USA?
dhomas 11:18 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
Many people think the US is “bad”. One of the US’ main geopolitical rivals is Russia. But the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. In some cases, like this one, they can both just be assholes. In other words, the US being “bad” doesn’t automatically make Russia “good”.
Meezly 12:50 on 2022-02-26 Permalink
I lurk on a forum for the local Chinese community that used to be casual, but over the years has become more political as it’s been overtaken by the few pro-China advocates and their political stuff was always about calling out US and Western imperialism, the constant “America Bad” rhetoric, as Michael said.
I’m fine with all that because much of it’s true, but if anyone ever criticizes China, then they’re quick to condemn you. There was some activity during the Olympics, but since the Ukraine invasion, complete silence.
I would like to think they’re probably conflicted and I’m a bit curious as to the stance they’d take, but not that curious to go out of my way to pose that question to them online.