In the midst of a serious shortage of affordable and social housing, fortunately in Montreal we will build at least one new luxury hotel at the Casino.
• Read also: Loto-Québec will build a hotel at the Montreal Casino
We certainly wouldn’t want to see wealthy players forced to sleep in a homeless shelter. It’s irony, of course. In fact, at first I thought it was a premature April Fool’s joke.
Oh no. It was with all the seriousness in the world that Loto-Québec announced it this week. An old project that the state company has dreamed of for a long time.
For more than $150 million, the Quebec legal gaming empire will build a 200-room luxury hotel at the Montreal Casino. Even Santa Claus, overwhelmed this year by inflation, hadn’t thought about it.
Eh yes. As the housing crisis explodes, lines lengthen in front of food banks and homeless people number in the thousands, in Parc Jean-Drapeau, a state corporation will build luxury.
Well done champions. Only the Kings and Taylor Swift will be missing to inaugurate it. Perhaps we could even add a little pheasant hunting trip exclusive to its well-heeled clients.
Meanwhile, according to The Press, since the start of the year, the City has dismantled at least 460 homeless encampments. A number which, it is specified, would even be “greatly underestimated”.
Dismantled camps
Four hundred and twenty of the camps were in Ville-Marie, the borough of Valérie Plante, mayor of Montreal. Mme Plante was also present at the Loto-Québec announcement. Very happy, it must be said, to be there.
It really makes you wonder on what planet some of our political and business elites can live well.
For the big boss of Loto-Québec, Jean-François Bergeron, it is the jackpot. Finally, he said, just like that of La Malbaie and Lac-Leamy, the Montreal Casino will have its luxury hotel.
“The hotel,” he said, “will be unique in its kind thanks to its location in the heart of Jean-Drapeau Park. It will allow Montreal to benefit from a great showcase.”
It is certain that a luxury hotel with refined architecture like its august future clients, nestled in the center of an island and also backed by a casino, will be a much more beautiful showcase for the metropolis than its Magané Latin Quarter and dirty.
On another planet
It’s obvious that a luxury hotel adjacent to a casino will make a much nicer business card for the city than the offices of its multiple housing committees. All furnished significantly more modestly than those of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal.
All these same housing committees where tenants trapped in unsanitary apartments, evicted by a greedy owner or unable to pay their outrageous rent increase, will despair.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure that out, right? How sad it is to see decision-makers so disconnected from reality.
In reality, however, there are plenty of citizens who, right here, are struggling, a growing portion of whom are also poorly housed or not housed at all.
In reality, the last thing this poor metropolis needs is yet another luxury hotel, offered by a state company in a hurry to better pamper locals and tourists with deep wallets.
If Loto-Québec has its itch, there is no shortage of affordable and social housing needs.
Unless the state company is content to launch new slogans, like “Win your home for life” or “Win a luxury room at the Casino”. As long as we live on another planet…