Guindonville, Val-David, Quebec, 2003

In 1941, Yvon Guindon bought 62 acres at the foot of Mont Condor in Val-David, in the Laurentians north of Montreal, and built small houses that he rented cheaply to village families and visitors. "I built these houses so that people could live," he said. By 2003 seven houses remained, home to about ten low-income tenants: artists, people living simply, a woman in a wheelchair, a young mother who had grown up there.

In May 2002 the municipality borrowed $500,000 to build a 300-space parking lot and a welcome centre for the Dufresne regional park on Mr. Guindon's land. He did not want to sell; he was expropriated for $208,000. The tenants were told to leave by July 1, 2003. They fought back with petitions (1,225 names, then 500 more including singer Richard Desjardins and poet Gilles Vigneault), a march of 200 people in February, letters to the papers, a website that reached readers in some twenty countries, and a court challenge that failed on June 2.

On July 1 they stayed. Platforms went up in the trees and on the roofs. On Sunday, July 6, at six in the morning, some forty Sûreté du Québec officers moved in. Kathy was chained to an 800-pound barrel of concrete on the roof of her own house; Julie was at the top of a tree with a U-lock around her neck. Excavators from another town began demolishing the houses while they watched: no local contractor had agreed to do it. Nine people were arrested. The next day, two buses of housing activists from across Quebec marched through the village.

On October 31, when Radio-Canada's Zone Libre aired its report, the parking lot had still not been built. Meanwhile, a developer had quietly bought three quarters of the park itself.

The message the tenants posted in June 2003

We are now staying in a house that will be demolished and replaced by a parking lot! We are a bunch of people preparing for a media shot. We would like the story to go around for a bit so the public knows that there is something legitimate about the request by the people who live here… there are not that many houses available anymore around here. It's impossible to rent a house for $300 a month because there aren't any anymore. Except the 7 little houses here… The phenomenon has gone through some important newspapers and TV already and the story has been taken over by some Quebec-known artists. For the first of July we all have to be out… the municipality is kicking us out… but we'll see how it goes. I'm gonna try to broadcast live on the web through the recently connected ultra high speed connection we've gotten at one of the houses I'm staying at! It might be real fun… there are lots of very willing persons out here and the energy is getting together every day.

guindonville.ca.tc, June 2003

English press at the time: National Post, June 18, 2003, "Villagers losing homes to parking lot"; The Gazette, July 4, 2003, "Defiant Val David tenants take to trees after eviction"; The Globe and Mail, July 6, 2003, "Police, housing activists clash in Montreal".

This site rebuilds, in French, the website the tenants ran in 2003, from copies preserved by the Internet Archive. Back to the French site →