Judge postpones eviction of Montreal homeless encampment under Ville-Marie expressway

A Superior Court judge has ordered the Quebec government to postpone its plans to evict a group of people living in tents under a Montreal highway for 10 days.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, Justice Chantal Massé also called on the Ministry of Transport to temporarily halt all construction work on the portion of the Ville-Marie expressway where up to 20 homeless people use as shelter. People have been living underneath the expressway near Guy and Atwater for years.

A legal-aid clinic had filed an injunction with the court to buy the people more time to find an alternative place to live before the ministry begins its construction work on the roadway. The construction project, which was slated to last until 2025, was already postponed last November amid concerns that more than a dozen people without any place to live would be stranded in the cold winter months.

Ten days is the maximum length of time the judge could issue an interim injunction without an agreement from the Attorney General of Quebec (AGQ), said Mobile Legal Clinic (MLC) lawyer Éric Préfontaine on Tuesday.

"On April 21, we would have to go back to court for renewal of the order, at which time it could be refused. It could be granted again for another 10 days or more, depending on the position of the AGQ," he said.

The ruling on Tuesday said the MLC, which is advocating on behalf of the people living in the encampment, is willing to continue working with the government to relocate them "while respecting the needs and rights of these individuals."

"This judgment may provide a period of grace. However, the fact remains that some prejudice, which is necessarily involved in removal, will be unavoidable," Massé wrote.

Préfontaine says the crux of the issue is a matter of timing.

"It's not that they have the right to remain there and to stop the work to be done on the expressway," he said. "It's more a question of, is it fair to ask them to leave now when we have tolerated them for so many years? When we are still under winter conditions? Don't we have anything else to offer them?"

At a hearing last week, Préfontaine argued that shelters for the city's homeless population are already overwhelmed and that the people in the encampment have specific needs.

The lawyer for the Ministry of Transport told the court that important repair work is needed, adding that the small tent community was tolerated for years, yet never had the right to live there in the first place.

The question of whether the government can evict a group of homeless people from a space belonging to the State "remains open at this stage," the judge wrote in her ruling, "particularly in light of the recent Canadian jurisprudence on the issue."