Moving Day

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Moving Day (French: Journée du déménagement) is a tradition in the province of Quebec, Canada.

Moving Day started as a humanitarian measure of the French colonial government of New France, who forbade seigneurs, the semi-feudal landlords of the seigneuries, from evicting their tenant farmers before the winter snows had melted. In law, this date was set as May 1. Later this evolved into urban leases that had to start on May 1 and end on April 30. There are still laws protecting renters in Québec from eviction during the winter.

During the Quiet Revolution, the government decided that it would be better to move Moving Day to the summer, so that students would not have to move during the school year. A law changed Moving Day to July 1, but no longer set a fixed term for leases. However, tradition has held sway, and the vast majority of leases are still a year long, and start around July 1. In 2004, approximately 120,000 households moved on or around July 1, corresponding to 4% of the population.[1]

Moving Day is a boon and a headache for commercial moving companies, and people often must reserve their services at least three months in advance. During this period moving companies work round the clock, with moving charges often being three times the normal rate. In Montréal, where as of 2002 only 36% of residents owned their own home, Moving Day is particularly busy.[2] The difficulty of moving is further complicated because, by convention, most Montréal landlords do not provide their tenants with a fridge or stove, meaning that tenants are forced to carry theirs with them. As well, exterior staircases leading up to second, third, or even fourth storey apartments are common, in part because historically this reduced the size of buildings and therefore decreased the owner's property taxes. These staircases are often narrow, curved, and metal, hardly ideal for nonprofessionals carrying major appliances.

Residents opposed to the movement for a sovereign Québec sometimes speculate that Moving Day is scheduled to ensure Quebecers are too busy moving house to celebrate the federalist Canada Day holiday, however, the bill which originally changed the date from May 1 to July 1 was introduced by Jérôme Choquette, a Liberal MNA.[3]