Quebec Housing Minister Karine Boivin Roy Says Bill 20 Concerns From Cooperatives Are Legitimate

In Quebec, Housing Minister Karine Boivin Roy said she does not intend to withdraw Bill 20, while also saying she does not rule out amending it to accommodate housing cooperatives that oppose it.

“The new minister responsible for Housing, Karine Boivin Roy, does not intend to withdraw Bill 20, as some groups are demanding”

Le Devoir

In an interview with Le Devoir on Wednesday, Boivin Roy said the concerns of housing cooperatives related to the bill are "legitimate," and she linked that to the centralized one-stop window that would route "all requests" for affordable housing through a single channel.

Le Devoir

Boivin Roy said a housing cooperative would then "lose its management power over tenant selection," and she described the cooperative model as "a model that is sixty years old" that fosters stability and encourages citizen participation.

She also said the pressure around Bill 20 is constant, adding, "The Bill 20, right now, everyone is talking to us about it. There isn’t a day when people don’t talk to us about Bill 20."

Le Devoir reported that Boivin Roy, recently named by Christine Fréchette, said she has five months to deliver impact and set priorities including accelerating shelters for battered women and restarting the Quebec Housing Corporation’s home adaptation program suspended in 2024.

In Quebec, Radio-Canada reported that Bill 4 was filed in the National Assembly as the Act on the Disclosure of Information for the Purposes of Protection Against Violence by an Intimate Partner, after a proposal to name it the Gabie Renaud Law in memory of a woman killed by her partner in Saint-Jérôme in September of last year.

The bill would let an individual concerned about the risk posed by an intimate partner request confidential information from police authorities to assess the level of danger, and Radio-Canada said the applicant will be able to make the request if she is 14 years of age or older via an online form or by visiting a police station.

Nice-Matin

Radio-Canada said requests will be centralized to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), which will transmit information to an organization designated by the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, and that the organization will meet with the at-risk person to make an informed decision and implement protective measures.

The article said the information shared by the police will not be limited to an intimate partner's criminal history and may include other information deemed relevant by police, such as a prior 911 call involving that individual.

Radio-Canada also reported that Gabie Renaud's killer, Jonathan Blanchet, had previously been arrested about thirty times and convicted at least six times for domestic violence, including a three-year prison sentence in 2021 and accusations of violating probation conditions on at least 16 occasions.

In the United States, Republican Chip Roy, Texas Rep, brought a new bill to end the H-1B visa abuses, calling it the American White-Collar Worker Jobs Act.

“An individual concerned about the risk posed by an intimate partner will now be able to request confidential information from police authorities to assess the level of danger that partner represents”

Radio-Canada

The Times of India quoted Roy saying, "It’s time to end this lottery-based pipeline and replace it with a system that prioritizes merit, enforces real wage standards, and puts America’s white-collar workers first," and the article said the bill would require a labor market test to determine if employers made a good faith effort to hire local workers before hiring H-1B visa holders.

The article said Roy’s push adds to other similar bills aimed at controlling the H-1B visa system that are far from being passed and implemented, and it described Roy as arguing that the H1-B visa has been abused by allowing employers to sideline American STEM workers.

The Times of India also said Roy wants to abolish the OPT program, describing OPT as a pipeline for college students to enter the job market.

Finally, the article reported that U.S. authorities including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced investigations into alleged OPT-related fraud, and said officials identified more than 10,000 students linked to employers they considered suspicious.