Montreal’s Notre-Dame encampment allowed to stay until court rules

The Notre-Dame encampment will be allowed to remain until a judge rules on the eviction, with a hearing set for Sept. 29–Oct. 1, Noovo Info reports. (Noovo Info)

According to a report by Noovo Info, the Notre-Dame encampment in Montreal will be allowed to remain in place until a judge rules on the case at the end of September, giving people experiencing homelessness a place to stay in the meantime.

The Mobile Legal Clinic said that Superior Court Judge Frédéric Pérodeau set the hearing dates from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 and extended the protective measures issued by Judge Gregory Moore on July 21, 2025, to remain in effect until Oct. 1.

“The key issue to be decided is whether evicting people experiencing homelessness from the MTQ-owned property along Notre-Dame East, in the absence of available emergency shelter in the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough, violates their rights to life, security and dignity as protected under the Canadian and Quebec charters,” the Mobile Legal Clinic said in a Facebook post on Aug. 4.

Several temporary reprieves have been granted by the court in the past two months to delay the dismantling. The legal saga began in June, when the Mobile Legal Clinic filed an emergency motion to prevent the planned clearing of the encampment, Noovo Info reported.

During court proceedings, the clinic’s lawyers argued that dismantling the site would cause serious harm to residents and that an encampment cannot be cleared when shelters are at capacity.

Lawyers for the City of Montreal and the Quebec Ministry of Transport, meanwhile, raised safety concerns, including the accumulation of semi-permanent structures, the growing number of tents, and the frequency of police and fire interventions. They said they are not seeking to ban city encampments altogether, but only to relocate tents to designated areas.