Sticky

There still is, of course, Canada day. If fact that is a day off as well.

But you are correct that July 1st is considered moving day. While leases are generally 1 year long and can begin/end on any other dat of the year, July 1 is generally the date that most new leases start.

This has benefits and problems

Benefits
- There should be alot of rentals to choose from several months before your lease is coming to an end becuase a majority of other leases are coming to an end as well.
- If you start looking early enough it should be pretty easy to find what you are looking for.
- if you are trying to rent your place you will have people whoses leases are ending as potential customers (instead of, say, mid-november when there maybe very fiew people looking. You may think that it would be more beneficial to the Lessor if there are few apartments to pick from as he will be able to charge a higher price but you are wrong. In Quebec rent is controlled. You cannot raise your rent to what the market will bear. If you do and the new leasee brings you to the rental board you will likely loose your case. The laws are setup to protect the Leasee.

Cons
- Everybody and there brother are moving on that day as well.
- Moving prices are higher - if you are able to find a mover
- Contractors (for work like painting and other) are hard to pin down
- You loose your day off work for Canada moving your stuff from one place to another. This sucks because Quebec law allows you to take a day off work for moving day anyway. This means that you caould have had your Canada day and had a day off work to move if the general moving day was not Canada Day.
- All other services and products needed for moving of for a new place are hard to get and are possibly priced higher.


I am sure that you could think of more if you tried, but you get the point.

Alot of things are different in Quebec.
For example the supreme cour of Canada refused to strike down the Quebec government's controversial ban on butter-coloured margarine.
That's right. In Quebec you are not allowed to make margaring the color of butter.

Believe it.

The idea is that the law "aims to protect Quebec's huge dairy industry by eliminating potential confusion with butter."

And Canada keeps on proping these things up.
"The top court found Quebec's position so compelling that the judges declined to call on the province's lawyers to defend the ban. It heard only from Unilever's counsel, Gerald Tremblay."

And as with most other things somebody tries to boil the issues down to Quebec sovreignty.
'Jean Vigneault, spokesperson for the Quebec Federation of Milk Producers, said "It's a question of sovereignty of governments to regulate commercial practices."'

Of course you should reas the whole article on this as I am just grabbing quotes for effect.
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...f-8efed407c377

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Sticky The Stickman