The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Montreal was before the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) on Thursday to contest the validity of a lease clause which prohibits pets in housing.
To assert her point of view and her arguments, she wants to intervene in the context of a dispute between a Montreal tenant and his landlord.
The latter applied to the Court in order to obtain an order forcing his tenant to respect the clause of the lease which prohibits animals, then a request for termination and eviction. The tenant responded by asking the TAL to cancel the clause, because she lives alone in her apartment on rue Bordeaux with her old cat Bébé and a small dog named Paul. It is unthinkable for him to get rid of it.
According to the SPCA, such clauses that prohibit animals simply should not exist.
On Thursday, the administrative labor judge who is hearing the case, Camille Champeval, was informed of a change in the situation: the owner abandoned his eviction request and reportedly sold the building.
The tenant’s lawyer still wants to move forward and insists that the clause be canceled: otherwise, it remains a “sword of Damocles” over his head.
The judge took the SPCA’s request under advisement. She will make her decision as soon as possible and will let you know if the animal shelter can intervene and present its arguments.
The administrative judge was clear: she can invalidate the clause for this specific lease, but not for all leases in Quebec.
But if she agrees with the tenant, this could set a precedent and give weapons to those who want to invalidate such clauses to keep their little animals with them, explained after the hearing the lawyer of the SPCA, Ms.e Marie-Claude St-Amant.
Because this ban can have a “devastating effect” on animals and families, says the SPCA. These clauses are also abusive, unreasonable and contrary to certain fundamental rights provided for in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the animal shelter intends to argue.
This forces families, desperate to find housing, to get rid of their dogs and cats as if they were simple objects, which contravenes the new status of “sentient beings” recognized for animals in the Civil Code. of Quebec in 2015.
The SPCA submits that on average, more than one animal per day is abandoned due to moving: 401 animals were abandoned and entrusted to the Montreal SPCA for this reason in 2022.