GND’s rent situation all over the media
The pains of being a public figure may be coming home to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, whose rental arrears are now news.
Surely someone could set up a Paypal fund – if everyone in today’s march tossed in a couple of bucks he could pay his rent arrears no problem at all.

steph 19:09 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
No idea why he would pay his rent in cash, fat envelope in mail box with no receipt, sounds like the kind of sketchy behaviors we’re trying to clean up. Definite lapse in judgement imho.
mdblog 19:30 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Even I don’t want to see this, ahem, gentleman tossed out onto the street so I’d gladly donate to help out. But let’s not forget that there are people out there much needier than GND.
By the way, if this protest had morphed into a protest against the lack of constitutionality of Bill 78, would CLASSE and the other student unions care to protest against Bill 101 as well? It’s just as large a violation of fundamental human rights as Bill 78 in my opinion. If we’re going to reboot democracy in Quebec, we may as well get rid of all the injustice.
Spock 19:34 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Maybe if he focused on something more than stirring the seeds of trouble, he could pay off his rent.
Maggie_T 19:48 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
I think that canoe.ca actually broke this story (time stamp): http://fr.canoe.ca/infos/regional/archives/2012/05/20120522-163609.html
Our intrepid Gabriel Nadeau-Douchebag was trying to BS the court by showing statements of bank withdrawals and arguing that it’s proof that the landlord received payment.
It’s the kind of nonsense that may get you into the pants of foolish and impressionable young UQAM sociology students, GND, but you can’t pull the wool over a judge’s eyes.
Ephraim 19:50 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Responsibility… paying your rent on time. Irresponsible… claiming you pay your rent in untraceable cash. Withdrawals from your bank account are proof that you spend money, not that you paid anything. Judgement at the rental court are good for 30 years and through bankruptcy.
sam 19:53 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
rubbing elbows with the mafia on the one hand, and being a month behind in the rent on the other? pah-leeeeze.
Ian 19:54 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
I somehow sense that Maggie_T is a less than neutral observer on this matter. A former impressionable, young UQAM sociology student, perhaps? :D
I know I’ve been screwed by landlords and it’s all just hearsay – you only learn to keep notes onyour landlords by experience, nobody expects to get screwed unless they are an intrinsically paranoid person. When there’s an older businessman claiming a rabble-rousing student is full of crap, whose side do you think the judge is going to take? Still and all, the law is the law – and as M. Nadeau-Dubois has learned, once burned, twice shy – keep better records. I know I do.
steph 19:55 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
I know some landlords can be difficult – but I’d make the effort to protect myself if I had one of those. There’s no need to pass the hat – he’s paid the amount due (by cheque this time) while the judge was considering the verdict.
Lets over-react anyways.
C_Erb 19:56 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
How is this news?
Kate 20:24 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
It shouldn’t be, but it is. Actually, I was hoping someone had set up a fund, but steph suggests the problem has already been taken care of.
JaneyB 05:15 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
It is not uncommon to pay rent in cash these days. Many people do not have chequebooks and landlords who rent to students assume that cheques might bounce. He should have gotten a receipt but he is 21 and probably did not foresee this. Good that it is taken care of.
Maggie_T 06:29 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
C_Erb: It’s news because it shows the content of GND’s character. He tried to weasel out of paying his rent and deliberately misled the tribunal hearing the case.
Ian: I love the mental gymnastics that GND followers go through to remedy the cognitive dissonance associated with accepting that their hero is a douche who tried to screw a landlord out of rent and then lied the court about it.
Shame on you for wanting to “pass around the hat.” He’s your pied piper.
Ian 07:25 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
@Maggie_T ad hominem attacks aside, I never advocated passing around the hat, I advocated keeping better records. Your agenda of personally-directed hatred against GND seems to be impairing your reading skills. FWIW, having finished my university education over 20 years ago I’m not a student, so to call me a “follower” of Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is a bit presumptuous- though I do sympathize with the #ggi this movement has transcended the “special interest” status of a mere student issue – now that bill 78 has passed, it’s a popular movement as evidenced by yesterdays’s protests, where 100s of thousands from all walks of life showed their support.
Kate 07:42 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
@Maggie_T , that’s slander, do you think that’s an intelligent line to take?
@steph, you mention that GND has paid the rent after all. I’m not seeing that anywhere, do you have a cite?
Raoul 10:10 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
It makes sense to pay the rent in cash if you owe money and your accounts are in the red (avoid having to explain to the bank why you chose to put a roof over your head before paying for their kids’ vacations)
Maggie_T 10:41 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
@Kate: it’s only libel if it isn’t true. I’m reiterating what the commissioner thought of GND’s testimony. In this case, the Régie commissioner’s own assessment of GND’s testimony is that it was simply not credible. I’ll leave it to everyone to assess what “not credible” means.
ant6n 10:56 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
This is a civil case, so it means that from court’s point of view, the story of the landlord is more likely than the story of GND. You seem to mix that up with the standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”, which applies in criminal cases.
Maggie_T 11:10 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Ant6n – yes and no. Yes that the standard is not the same as in criminal cases. No, that I’m confused since I didn’t even discuss standards of proof. Clearly, the judge didn’t buy the story that GND was peddling and said that it was not credible.
Whether the standard was “beyond a reasonable doubt” or “on the balance of probabilities” is beside the point. The commissioner did not believe GND’s story and ruled against him on those grounds.
ant6n 11:13 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
You make it seem that GND is a liar beyond reasonable doubt, and a sleazebag on top of that. mThis is not something you can infer from some comissioner deciding that the landlord’s story was more credible.
Maggie_T 11:29 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Ant6n: your reference to standards of proof between criminal cases and civil cases is a red herring. GND gave testimonial evidence that was considered “not credible” by the commissioner hearing the case. That doesn’t mean much to you (as it is the assessment of “some commissioner”) but I find it telling.
Hamza 12:03 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
hey maggie_t…. WHY U SO ANGRY!?!!!!
Maggie_T 12:22 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Hamza, ’cause I ain’t feelin’ the love from all y’all! You be showin’ GND too much love and he don’t deserve it, dawg. He ain’t keepin’ it real and that ain’t cool.
Steph 12:23 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
@kate – I read it on the JDM site. They were especially smarmy about how he decided to pay with a cheque this time, and insinuated that his payment before the judge rendered a response was an admission of culpability. It’s clearly not there anymore. Maybe someone else also saw it too?
Hamza 12:49 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Your skill with typed ebonics is mighty though hampered by a reliance on apostrophes.
Gabriel is 21 and not the leader of anything. As he made clear in last week’s mirror, he’s just the messenger.
However he does deserve kudos for consistently outpoliticking the premier, assemblie nationale, national post, journal de montreal, and all the rest of the establishment attempts to destroy him and the student movements.
Be honest did you think that we’d ever make it to 100 days, a special law that lasted about two seconds and sister protests in new york and paris?
Even if you hate him and CLASSE, don’t tell me they doesn’t deserve some grudging respect.
Kate 15:03 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Thanks steph.
Maggie_T, you fail to impress.
Hamza, you make sense, as usual.
Maggie_T 16:01 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Kate, never set impressing you as a goal, so failure to impress you doesn’t bother me. Actually, I’d be worried if I did impress you because it would mean that I was incoherent.
Kate 16:47 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Not sure what you’ll get out of hanging around here being hostile to me. Surely there are more congenial places for a woman of your apparent intellectual superiority.
Since all you’ve given us so far is a fictionalized piece of slander about GND, forgive me if I continue to fail to be impressed by your performance.
Maggie_T 22:00 on 2012/05/23 Permalink
Kate, I was not hostile to you; you were passively-aggressively taking a cheap shot at me. By saying that I fail to impress, it presupposes that you’re someone superior that I’m here to impress. You’re not.
BTW, it’s not about intellectual superiority, it’s about intellectual integrity and honesty. You’ve got to get yourself some of the latter as I haven’t seen any evidence of it from you here. I have seen a disturbing amount moral bankruptcy gussied up with pedestrian and hackneyed leftist rhetoric and masquerading as moral certainty. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing. If you want to play house or blog queen and leave me out, then you don’t have to tell me twice.
For the record, there’s nothing libelous about saying that GND is a deadbeat who needed a Régie decision evicting him from his apartment in order to pay his rent. Nor is it libelous to say that GND lied to the commissioner about the situation. You can read that in the decision. It’s a matter of fact.
Kate 00:18 on 2012/05/24 Permalink
Really turning on the charm, aren’t you?