The City of Montreal promises to help the two groups defending the rights of tenants forced to leave a building bought by a private school in Toronto in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve to relocate, while organizations and elected members of the Assembly national ask Quebec to offer more stability to community organizations tenants.
Cestar College, based in the Queen City, acquired a four-storey commercial building located on Ontario Street East last fall in order to completely renovate it and then offer four programs educational. This building initially housed six community organizations, but three have left in recent months. Among the remaining organizations that will soon be ousted are two tenant defense groups in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, namely the BAILS Committee and Entraide Logement. They must leave this building by July 1, reported The duty this Friday.
“It’s disturbing, especially since these are organizations that work for the right to housing, an essential issue for our neighborhood,” reacted in writing on Friday the councilor for the district of Hochelaga, Éric Alan Caldwell. He assured that a borough employee is “in contact” with these two tenant defense groups “since March” in order to help them relocate.
“Right now, we are doing another turn of the wheel with them to support them in finding premises that suit them. We want to preserve the popular vocation of the district, with a strong and united social fabric,” added Mr. Caldwell.
The eviction of community groups is also common and “a sad reminder that the housing crisis concerns and affects everyone,” wrote the cabinet of the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, at the end of the day. noon. “However, the City does not have the regulatory levers to eliminate these practices in commercial premises”, whose leases offer very weak protection to tenants, compared to their equivalent in residential buildings, underlined the attaché of press Marikym Gaudreault.
” [La Ville] however, makes sure to accompany and support the organizations affected in various ways, in particular through its grant program for premises with a community vocation and in the accompaniment for the search for new premises,” she said. to be worth.
The spokesperson for the Popular Action Front in Urban Redevelopment, Véronique Laflamme, suggests that the City reserve some of its “surplus” buildings and land for community organizations. They could then get out of the precariousness imposed on them by having to sign a commercial lease in addition to having the guarantee of being able to stay in the heart of the neighborhoods they serve, she says. “Organizations need to stay at the heart of the communities that have put these resources in place,” said the spokesperson.
However, “there is a lack of socio-community infrastructure to house organizations in all neighborhoods” of Montreal, also notes the deputy of Quebec solidaire Andrés Fontecilla, who asks Quebec to provide premises to community groups in need.
The Legault government could also tackle “the total lack of supervision of commercial leases”, adds the MP. “There is a need for the Government of Quebec to legislate in this matter, but I see little possibility that the Government of Quebec will act in this direction”, drops the MP, who describes as “deplorable” the eviction of two tenant defense groups from Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
A disturbing college
On the side of the Parti Québécois (PQ), it is above all the stated interest of this private college in Toronto to expand to Montreal and the rest of Quebec that is causing a reaction, at a time when the Government of Quebec intends to adopt in the coming months its Bill 96, which aims to strengthen the Charter of the French language.
“In its own Bill 96, the government told us that it wanted to freeze student enrollment in private, non-subsidized English-language colleges. By accepting the arrival of Cestar College, it would contravene the spirit of its own law, which is nonsense, reacted in writing the leader of the PQ, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon.
“If the CAQ authorizes this, we will have yet another demonstration of its double discourse in linguistic matters. I think that at this stage, the citizens of eastern Montreal need community organizations that work in housing much more than a private English-language college,” he added.
At the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, it is confirmed that the file of College Cestar concerning the development of a school in a building on rue Ontario Est is “under analysis”. This private college in Toronto has also taken steps to acquire the controversial colleges of the company Rising Phoenix International in Quebec, but there again, “the request for the transfer of permits is still being analyzed by the Ministry of ‘Education and the Ministry of Higher Education,’ says Director of Communications Bryan St-Louis.
The Rising Phoenix colleges, located in Montreal, Longueuil and Sherbrooke, had been the subject of numerous criticisms related in particular to the staggering ancillary fees imposed on foreign students and to questionable tactics in terms of recruitment. An action plan was then presented last June by the Minister of Higher Education, Danielle McCann, in order to tighten the supervision of non-subsidized private colleges.
With Jeanne Corriveau and Lisa-Marie Gervais