By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
A Cowansville man may be facing homelessness due to a little-known provision in the province’s tenants’ rights regulations.
Donald Guénard, 70, has lived in a 3 ½ in a four-plex on Rue Principale in Cowansville for the past 26 years. In February 2022, he and his neighbours learned that the building, recently purchased by the local construction company Groupe Schinck, was slated to be demolished.
While his neighbours have been able to find alternative options in the interim, Guénard, a retiree who lives on a fixed income of about $1,800 per month, has not. “The ones who moved, they paid crazy prices,” he said. For the past two years, his rent has been $425 per month. “There’s nothing like that anymore, and I don’t have the means to pay more. Now I only have a couple of weeks to find something.”
Under most circumstances, it’s illegal to evict people like Guénard – low-income seniors 70 and older who have lived at the same address for more than 10 years. If Guénard had chosen to move before his 70th birthday, he would ordinarily have been entitled to compensation equivalent to two years’ rent. In case of a disagreement between himself and the property owner, he could appeal to the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) the province’s housing tribunal
However, those conditions only apply to classic “renovictions” and legal evictions – where the property owner plans to expand or subdivide the unit, change its usage or adapt it for themselves or a relative. Because Groupe Schinck plans to demolish the four-plex rather than renovate it, Judge Anjuly Hamel of the TAL ruled, the housing court has no jurisdiction. It’s up to the municipality – which issues demolition permits through the municipal demolition committee – to manage demolition cases.
“Donald should be unevictable, but the fact that there’s a demolition permit means those criteria go out the window,” said Serge Racicot, Guénard’s friend, who is helping Guénard – who doesn’t have a computer, a cell phone or a car – navigate the process and find alternative housing. “His apartment is not in great shape but he doesn’t complain.”
Racicot explained that the new owners had the renters sign a new temporary lease in early 2022. Guénard successfully contested that lease before the TAL in 2023, but earlier this year he received another notice from a bailiff. “That was when we went to the TAL again…and they said that because there was now a demolition [planned], they didn’t have jurisdiction. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen.” The city demolition committee conditionally granted a demolition permit for Guénard’s building on March 26 of this year.
The BCN spoke briefly with a co-owner of Groupe Schinck who did not want to be named. They said they had met with Guénard and sincerely tried – so far unsuccessfully – to help him find alternative housing. They vehemently denied that the planned demolition was a renoviction in disguise, saying “if you saw the building, you’d know” why it was slated for demolition. According to a TAL submission, Groupe Schinck plans to build two six-plexes on the property after the four-plex is demolished.
Julie Coderre, a budgetary advisor at the renters’ rights organization ACEF Montérégie, has also been providing support to Guénard. She cosigned a letter to Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard about Guénard’s case. “As you already know, the citizens of Cowansville cannot oppose the demolition of their building before the TAL, because the city has a committee which takes the decision. When a building is demolished, most of the time, it is occupied by tenants who have affordable rents. These tenants will have great difficulty getting rehoused at an affordable price afterwards. Even if there is compensation, this amount will quickly run out with a much more expensive rent.”
She and Racicot are concerned that in light of the moratorium on evictions for subdivision, enlargement or change of usage that came into force last month, developers will exploit rules around demolition to tear down old buildings, build new ones and charge increased rent.
Racicot said he believed evictions for demolition should be regulated by the same rules around advance notice, compensation and contestation before the TAL as other kinds of evictions. “It’s not a table that you’re kicking out; it’s a person,” said Racicot. “I don’t know how Donald will manage.”
Fanny Poisson, a spokesperson for Mayor Sylvie Beauregard, said in a brief statement that the demolition committee “is sensitive to the realities of the rental market and obviously considers everything before making its decisions.”
That’s small consolation for Guénard, who says the situation has kept him awake at night. “Nothing new is going on here – just the machine winning again, to the detriment of a proletarian like me.”