Benoit Dorais conveyed a plea from the city this week for landlords to keep rent hikes reasonable.
Updates from January, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Good piece by La Presse’s Henri Ouellette‑Vézina on the repair crews that spread out through the metro system at night to do crucial repairs that keep the system running. They only have between 1 and 5 am – if that – to reach their locations, do the work and get back to base. With a series of photos showing views and equipment the users never see – and an emphasis on how much maintenance the metro always needs.
Nicholas
Sometimes you can see these vehicles getting into place when you’re on the last metro outbound and it’s on the inbound track. With the huge backlog, I would not be surprised if we get more weekend partial shutdowns, such as the yellow line a few years ago and is common in Toronto, Boston, DC, Paris, etc.
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Kate
A man who killed his ex’s new lover in the Mile End in 2022 in a spat over dog ownership pleaded guilty to manslaughter Wednesday morning at the Palais de justice.
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Kate
Since it’s a Quebec story not centered on Montreal, I haven’t looked in on this one yet, but the story about CAQ MNAs soliciting donations in return for access to ministers continues to grow. Mayors of towns were also pressed to donate.
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Kate
Desjardins plans to cut a third of its outlets in Quebec and Ontario, and that includes bank machines.
Some recent report says bank machine use is way down. How is it that whenever I’m using a bank machine, other people are also coming and going using them too?
Ephraim
I rarely use an ATM. I have, a few times at my closest branch. And I must admit that I have used the ATM to change bills. It bugs me that they don’t have a way to handle coins, though. Which is something we need for many people. Those CoinStar machines are essentially a tax on the poor.
Kate
I have to use an ATM a couple of times a month. There are 3 machines and usually one of the others is also in use.
Ian
I mostly use ATMs to process cheques. Needless to say, almost all my transactions are direct deposit – but sometimes, for a variety of reasons, there is a cheque involved. I pay a monthly fee to reduce the cost of using interac, which is, of course, my typical behaviour – as it is with most people these days.
It’s all very simple to see how we got here, boiling-frog style, but it wasn’t that long ago that there were no service fees at all if you went to a teller, and at first, none if you used interac. Now there is a fee for both.
Whoever came up with charging for each interaction is probably a saint in the banking community, They figured out how to make a kajillion dollars out of something that was up until then totally free and considered a core service.
MarcG
The only time I’ve needed an ATM in the past 4 years has to get some emergency cash. You can deposit cheques through the Desjardins app and I presume the other banks’ apps as well. Regarding Interac fees, why not get a fee-less credit card, set it to auto-pay the full balance every month, and use that instead? You can even flip it and have them pay you fees to use it through “bonus dollars”.
Joey
@Ian your bank doesn’t have mobile deposit?
Ian
They do, but I know enough about inf9sec that I won’t do mobile banking or payments.
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Kate
A young man that’s the sole suspect in the murders of his parents and grandmother a year ago is also heir to their money. But he’s on the road to being disinherited, although surely this would depend on his conviction?
Nicholas
There’s a lower standard to win a case in a private lawsuit versus a criminal trial, so he could stay out of jail but lose the money. I’m not a lawyer.
Kate
I doubt there are any other possible suspects, but if it turned out the young man is innocent, surely he would deserve to inherit?
Nicholas
Oh, for sure. But innocent and not guilty are not the same thing. OJ was not guilty in the criminal trial but lost the civil trial, because it was judged 50%+1 likelihood he killed her, but the other jury found it wasn’t beyond a reasonable doubt. Sometimes you also have someone be not guilty of murder, but they would have been guilty of manslaughter, but the prosecutor didn’t bring that as an option because they didn’t want the jury to have a chance to compromise. I would guess, based on the coverage, this guy loses the inheritance regardless, but I haven’t looked at the facts enough and no one knows for sure.
H. John
The article, as is often the case, doesn’t give enough information.
There are two articles of the Quebec Civil Code that could have been used:
620. The following persons are unworthy of inheriting by operation of law:
(1) a person convicted of making an attempt on the life of the deceased;…
or
621. The following persons may be declared unworthy of inheriting:
(1) a person who has subjected the deceased to ill treatment or who has otherwise behaved towards him in a seriously reprehensible manner;…
The article says the liquidator is using art. 621 to try to disinherit Galarneau. It doesn’t say who the liquidator is, or what their personal interests might be. An heir can and often is the liquidator.
As Kate points out the criminal case will be important to whether or not Galarneau can be disinherited. He can both be found to have committed the acts and be found non criminally responsible which would mean art. 621 cannot be used against him.
“Piché c. Fournier, un homme déclaré non criminellement responsable du meurtre de ses parents avait été déclaré indigne de succéder à sa mère au motif que l’assassinat de celle-ci constituait des sévices et un comportement hautement répréhensible. Or, la Cour d’appel a cassé ce jugement en concluant que l’article 621 C.C.Q. réserve en principe la sanction de l’indignité aux seuls sévices et comportements répréhensibles volontaires et intentionnels. En l’espèce, les gestes du fils résultaient d’un délire d’une telle ampleur qu’il l’avait privé de tout discernement, le rendant incapable de distinguer le bien du mal. Quant à ses agissements avant le meurtre, ils s’inscrivaient dans le contexte du délire mental que la schizophrénie occasionnait chez lui.”
And previous reporting has pointed out that Galarneau has a history of mental illness.
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Kate
Fresh National Geographic guide to Montreal. A few nice photos but no surprises.
carswell
Have only got as far as the second sentence: “The capital of the French-speaking province of Quebec…” Yikes! That’s a surprise.
carswell
The author also claims American Airlines has direct flights between the UK and Montreal. Untrue.
Some of the recommendations — Qui lait cru over Hamel at the JTM, for example — are debatable too.
Ephraim
@carswell – Well…. AA sort of does. They are codeshare partners with BA (and Finnair). BA95 (AA6920 and AY5995) flies nonstop LHR to YUL.
carswell
That’s not what the article says, Ephraim. “Air Canada, British Airways, Air Transat and American Airlines fly between the UK and Montreal multiple times a week. Average flight time: 7h15m.”
There are no direct AA flights between the UK and Montreal. Yes, AA is a member of the OneWorld alliance. So are TAP and Iberia, among others; why not mention them? And Lufthansa and United are code-sharing members of Star Alliance, along with Air Canada. If it’s true for AA, why not for them? Because it’s not true.
Ian
They spelled “Fairmount” Bagel “Fairmont” … though thinking Montreal is th capital of Quebec is a way more egregious error. Maybe we need the descriptor “NOT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL OF QUEBEC” twice the size of the name of the city on signs at the airport 😀
Ephraim
TP and IB don’t codeshare that flight, just AA and AY. And only LH codeshares the AC flight. TS flights are codeshares with PD, but only if you fly via YYZ. I assume that the only reason that AA is mentioned is that either they are a sponsor of NatGeo or it’s needed for their ad server (which I can’t see because I’m not geolocated in the US and I have an ad blocking DNS in use.)
EmilyG
I wonder if National Geographic still doesn’t allow submissions of photos from Quebecers.
Blork
Arrrgh! Made it almost all the way through without a mention of the “underground city,” and there it was at the end. (I was near the Quartier des Spectacles one night during the holidays when a French family approached me asking how to find the underground city. I tried to explain that at 8:00PM on a Wednesday night there was nothing to see there except shuttered kiosks in tunnels connecting malls that aren’t open, but they just did not want to hear it.)
EmilyG, not sure what you mean. The article’s photos are by Jeff Frenette, who is a local.
Kate
Blork, shawn told an almost identical anecdote a year ago. I’ve also had people ask me, downtown, where the underground city is, and have told them “just go through that door” or “you’re standing on it” variously.
Mark Côté
One cold afternoon I tried to navigate the “underground city” from Square Victoria up to Peel & Ste-Catherine. I gave up after getting one building east of the metro. Surprisingly few resources online about getting around underground.
Mark Côté
Er, west of the metro I mean.
Annette
It’s kind of you not to crush their sense of wonder, Kate.
MarcG
The underground city isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind (filled with shuttered kiosks in tunnels connecting malls that aren’t open).
Joey
I know we have our unique underground city, but in Toronto last week I did a 20-minute underground walk from one part of Downtown Toronto to another (and the malls, kiosks and food courts were a lot nicer than the walk from, say, Bonaventure Metro to the Eaton Centre: https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/visitor-toronto/path-torontos-downtown-pedestrian-walkway/
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Kate
The city has bought two more properties. One is the old garage on Marie‑Anne and St‑Dominique that’s been covered in graffiti from time out of mind, site to be redeveloped, and the other is a disused church in Rosemont that the city wants for homeless services – a purpose already running into doubts from nearby residents.
DeWolf
The garage has a lot of potential: up to 75 units of social housing. But when? There are a number of sites purchased by the city in recent years that are decontaminated and ready to go — the former garage at Laurier/Papineau comes to mind — but Quebec still hasn’t delivered the money it owes for their construction.
Kate
The city does seem to be amassing property with no immediate funds for building. That old garage lot might need quite a bit of cleaning up before it’s suitable, too.
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Kate
An international police drug sweep has netted Roberto Scoppa, brother of the late Andrew and Salvatore, both murdered in 2019.
dhomas
Am I allowed to call this one a mafioso? ;p
Ian
Since Bill 32 it’s pretty clear that you are “allowed” to call people whatever you want, even in a university class let alone on a local news blog.
Kate
I wonder whether they played that card game when they were kids together at home.
dhomas 19:55 on 2024-01-31 Permalink
As a “propriétaire occupant” of a triplex, I do my best to be reasonable. I would really love to keep my rent hikes reasonable this year. However, my municipal taxes have increased by over 7% since last year (I just got the notice in the mail yesterday). Would M. Dorais like me to be as “reasonable” as the city is being with landlords? Or is a 7% rent increase unreasonable?
I agree that landlords need to be reasonable (and I won’t actually raise the rent by 7%, though it will be higher than last year), but it’s a little rich coming from an administration that just put in place such a large increase in municipal taxes.
value 22:42 on 2024-01-31 Permalink
The only way the property value goes up a full 7% a year is speculation &/or gentrification.
If your base tax rate is .8% of your property value (the Montreal average), the 7% increase is only 7% of .8%, so it’s only a .56% increase in what you pay in taxes in relation to the property value. I am sure any of your tenants would LOVE a .56% rent increase. If you are charging them 1500 a month, that would be $8.40.
I’m not harassing you individually though, most people don’t understand math, which confuses a lot of converations between cities, landlords, and tenants. That landlords are allowed to increase their rents by a percentage of the rent instead of being directly tied to the property value is one of the reasons we are in a housing crisis.
Michael 00:37 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
Maybe there should be a board that arbitrarily decides how much Montreal can raise taxes by.
MarcG 10:50 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
Does anyone know how the city calculates property value?
saintjacques 10:52 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
> a board that arbitrarily decides how much Montreal can raise taxes by
C’est a dire, comme un conseil municipal qui adopte le budget annuel de la ville?
Ephraim 11:11 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
@MarcG – The rate is standard, the city uses sales. You can go to https://servicesenligne2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/sel/evalweb/index and put in your address. In the corner is a square that says “visualiser les ventes” and you need your tax bill to see the code and it will give you some of the values it used to guess yours.
But that is one part that really needs reform. The person doing the evaluation can be biased, your art, your decor and your furniture could change the value. And even parquet floors count as if they are solid wood floors. It should simply be by square footage.
Michael 11:41 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
@saintjacques
Non, un regie de logement / taxes qui plafonne les augmentations entre 1% et 3 % augmente chaque année n’importe quoi.
saintjacques 12:54 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
@Michael
Alors, une Régie d’annuller des conseils municipales, non-élu, capable de annuller les décisions d’un organe démocratiquement élu?
People are huge fans of representative government until (a) it does something they don’t want it to do; or (b) doesn’t do something that they do want it to do. Then they want another layer of government to force the first layer to get (a) or (b) sorted out to their satisfaction. Then they’ll complain there is too much bureaucracy.
DeWolf 18:04 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
Michael is being facetious because he thinks there should be no rent controls, and if tenants get hit by a 30% increase, they should just suck it up or move to Trois-Rivières.
Ian 21:02 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
A nice 3 bedroom in an older building with interesting design features that has been kept up will still run you around 1500 even in Trois-Rivières.
Michael 23:39 on 2024-02-01 Permalink
DeWolf loves the fact the city can raise large amounts of taxes and nobody independent is there to put a cap on it.
The less the city of Montreal is able to raise taxes, the less the rents get raised across the city.
Unless you want to tell me you are a big fan of large tax increases because you are a bootlicker.
saintjacques 09:34 on 2024-02-02 Permalink
> the city can raise large amounts of taxes and nobody independent is there to put a cap on it.
If only there was some mechanism by which – and work with me here – that the citizens of Montreal could periodically pass judgement on elected officials who collectively approve the city’s annual budgets, and could replace them with other, different elected officials who promised to approve annual budgets that included smaller tax increases.
MarcG 11:15 on 2024-02-02 Permalink
I own a modest single-family home valued around $540K and city taxes last year were $3704.50, and this year are $3994.46 – a 7.25% increase which comes to $24/month. Say a triplex is currently valued at $1.5 million – taxes this year are $12K and they were $11,160 last year, for an increase of $840 or a whopping $70 a month! Unless I’m missing something, a landlord saying “oh my property taxes went up 7% so your rent is going up 7%” is not sincere, since with 2 tenants paying $1500/month that would translate to an extra $210/month or $2520/year – a 2.4% rent increase to $1534.50 would more than cover it, and that’s with pushing the whole increase onto the tenants.
dhomas 17:47 on 2024-02-02 Permalink
So, I was obviously mentioning my 7% tax increase for dramatic effect. I could have been much more incendiary by quoting the 15.3% increase in this article, since I live in Anjou:
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2023-10-04/budget-des-arrondissements/des-hausses-de-taxes-locales-salees.php. Notice I said that I WON’T raise rent by 7% in the very next paragraph. Also, I very much understand math, @value, having majored in Statistics in university… (that was a little insulting, btw).
I just find it comical that the city administration is telling landlords not to raise rents when they just raised our taxes. Rules for thee but not for me, and all that.
All that said, the tax increase alone gives me reason to raise by 2.3% (though the TAL says more). This would mean 1125$/month for my (large) 5 and a half, as opposed to the 1100$/month my tenant is currently paying (I realize this is under market, but as I said, I’ve been trying to be reasonable). Plus regular maintenance costs increasing. Not to mention my mortgage is up for renewal this year and glob only knows how much more I’ll be paying per month. So, my increase will be more than 2.3%, despite not making any renos to the appartment this year. The TAL calculator tool tells me I should increase by 4.96%, so I’ll go with that and round down to an even 1150$/month.
I’m not a real estate tycoon. I’m not raking in the cash on my property. I’m just a guy who absolutely wanted to live on the island and whose only path to home ownership was to subsidize my costs via rental revenue. I would NOT be able to afford my house if I wanted to buy it today. I would also very much like to not lose my house, so I must raise the rents to cover my new, higher expenses. If I were forced to sell, the next owner would 100% renovict my tenant and charge the going rate of 1750$ to 2000$/month for his appartment. Just like the house next door to mine did. They bought the house and “lived” in it for 1 year while they renovated. Now the rents are all double what they were (or more!).
So, all that to say, not all landlords are the scummy slumlords you read about in the paper. Some of us are just regular folks trying to get by. And it’s not always easy.
MarcG 10:03 on 2024-02-03 Permalink
The message from Dorais is simply: don’t gouge your tenants, use the TAL calculator. He’s not saying that rents shouldn’t be raised at all. It’s is obviously not aimed at you.
Kate 10:58 on 2024-02-03 Permalink
Michael, I just caught up with what you wrote (“….because you are a bootlicker”) and find that phrasing offensive. Please find somewhere else to express your nasty attitude.