A Montreal landlord has been ordered to pay more than $160,000 in damages after Quebec’s housing tribunal concluded he made false statements in eviction notices and intentionally misled tenants, lawyers and the tribunal.
The Tribunal administratif du logement found that Gabriel Fortin, the landlord, knowingly violated an article of Quebec’s Civil Code, in a pair of May 12 decisions, which allows landlords to evict tenants for projects involving the enlargement, subdivision or change of use of residential units, provided that those plans are genuine.
“The court is sending a clear message here: evictions obtained in bad faith have an unprecedented impact on tenants, which justifies substantial monetary penalties,” reads a statement from the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Kimmyanne Brown and Ré Poulin Ladoucer.
The rulings stem from eviction notices issued in 2020 and 2021 to Annie Dupriez and Steve Poirier, who had lived for more than a decade in apartments on de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.
Fortin sought to evict the tenants by claiming he wanted to combine several apartments into larger units. The evictions were authorized by the TAL in 2021.
In these decisions, however, the tribunal described portions of Fortin’s testimony as “far from convincing” and noted that he had contradicted himself on several occasions. Despite those concerns the tribunal concluded at the time that the proposed project was genuine and authorized the evictions.
Questions about the project resurfaced in the years to follow.
According to the May 12 rulings, one of the units later appeared online as a renovated four-and-a-half apartment, the same size as the original, despite the original plan presented to the tribunal involving the enlargement and combination of units.
The tribunal ultimately concluded that Fortin’s statements regarding the project were false and that he had intentionally misled the parties involved in the proceedings.
While Fortin owns the apartments through a corporation, administrative Judge Marie-Ève Marcil found that he could also be held personally liable, as he had engaged in an illegal scheme to trick the tribunal, the evicted tenants and future tenants. The scheme, she found, included knowingly making false claims in eviction notices and engaging in “reprehensible conduct” in an effort to mislead the tribunal ahead of an inspection of the units in question by an administrative judge.
Fortin’s lawyers disputed the tenants’ characterization of the case and said his clients attempted to settle the matter privately before the tribunal rendered its decision.
“The tenants preferred to receive less money and pursue the matter before the tribunal,” Mr. Berthiaume, Fortin’s lawyer, said in an interview with The Gazette.
The ruling arrives among heightened scrutiny of evictions and tenant displacements in Montreal’s rental market. In 2024, Quebec introduced a temporary moratorium on evictions linked to enlargement, subdivision and change-of-use of residential units, the type of project Fortin cited when seeking to evict the tenants in 2021.
Tenant advocates have argued that renters often face significant challenges in obtaining the evidence and resources necessary to contest evictions they believe are being carried out in bad faith.
The Gazette requested an interview with Fortin through his lawyer but did not receive a response by Thursday afternoon.
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