Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
Madam Minister, have you read this terrible article published on Saturday June 4 in The Press ? Do you know that a senior tenant, Clément Robitaille, died in July 20211 “a heart attack after becoming dehydrated following a prolonged stay in his vehicle without ventilation or air conditioning, while the temperatures were high”?
And why this extended stay? Because Mr. Robitaille, a septuagenarian with a modest income, was evicted from his home in January 2021 by landlords whose main qualities were obviously not empathy, compassion and a sense of responsibility! The man who died in pitiful conditions had literally been living in his car for six months. He spent the winter there. He couldn’t find affordable housing.
Reading this article by Frédérik-Xavier Duhamel is heart-wrenching. Another drama linked to a housing crisis whose existence you pay lip service to, Madam Minister. But there is more: Mr. Robitaille should never have been evicted from his apartment, because article 1959.1 of the Civil Code of Quebec prohibits it since the adoption in 2016 of bill 492 which I had l honor to defend at the Blue Room. A bill written to measure precisely to avoid similar tragedies.
So, a nagging question torments me: how can landlords – who should not ignore the laws – put pressure on elderly, poor and vulnerable tenants to end up getting them to leave?
Who will punish this unforgivable behavior and how?
But I also have a proposal for you: since its passage, Bill 492 has never been the subject of any government publicity worthy of the name. Many senior tenants are unaware of its existence despite the efforts of housing committees. Is your party – which has become a government – ashamed of having supported a law that may be useful to some Quebec seniors? I ask you, Madam Minister, to set up a real campaign to inform Quebec seniors. You could thus save many elderly tenants illnesses, depressions and, in this case, an absurd and undignified death.
I strongly suggest that you go further: Bill 492 needs to be strengthened, updated. Why not apply it to people aged 65 (rather than 70 at the moment), who have lived in their homes for five years (rather than 10 now)? Why not allow low-income seniors, and not only the poorest, to be covered by a law that protects them from having to move?
“It was because they kicked him out that he let himself die,” said a friend of the deceased. I believe him. For a senior, uncertainty, loss of bearings, uprooting can be fatal. Will you wait for another drama to act?