Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue gets grocery store after more than a year without one
For more than a year, residents of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue had no local grocery store after the town's only supermarket closed, forcing residents like 75-year-old Diane Madden to take a 30-minute bus ride or rely on friends to buy food.
That changed last week when a local beeswax shop, B Factory, expanded its space to include a small grocery section, called Mon Marché Local. It marks the first time since last April the West Island town has had a place to buy essentials.
The closing of the Metro grocery store last April hit particularly hard for seniors and students. With limited public transit options or nearby alternatives, quick grocery runs became a logistical challenge for many in the community.
Madden, who's lived in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue for more than 30 years and doesn't own a car, says she's relieved.
'I think one of the reasons people were upset or sad about losing our grocery store, (is) because there are a lot of people in Ste-Anne who don't have cars,' she said. 'Elderly people, or people in wheelchairs … could just run in and get stuff right at the old grocery store.'
Valeria Martial, 24, who moved to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue a year ago to study parasitology at McGill's MacDonald Campus, says she's happy she can now buy staples in town, since she used to commute 45 minutes each way on transit to buy food.
'Sometimes, I need, like, for example, a tomato — things that are so basic,' she said. 'I cannot go one hour to the grocery store for one hour … just to cook.'
The new grocery store offers a small, curated selection of local vegetables, organic dairy products, butcher items and snacks. In contrast, Metro was a large supermarket chain with a wide variety of goods.
'That other grocery store had everything you need. It was really nice,' said Martial, who had visited Metro while interning in town before moving there. Although she's thrilled to finally have a place to shop nearby, she still wishes there were a one-stop shop where she could pick up staples like flour and sugar.
President of the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue merchants association, Wine Mansfield, said part of the reason the Metro supermarket closed is it struggled to cover its expensive rent.
'One of the problems we had with the previous shop, it was very big, and it had franchise fees to pay and things like that. So I think this is probably more suitable to the requirements of our village,' Mansfield said.
Until a grocery section was added to the shop last Friday, it exclusively sold bee products such as beeswax candles, honey and beeswax food wraps. Owner and founder Margaux Murray said her business faced numerous challenges during and after the COVID pandemic and, by February 2025, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Adding the grocery section was a last-ditch effort to save the business.
'As soon as I started even talking about the idea, people were like: 'Oh, my God, a grocery store! You're gonna bring back groceries? Are you gonna have this? Are you gonna have that?' And so I was like, OK, I think I might be onto something here,' she said.
Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Mayor Paola Hawa says Mon Marché Local will ensure food security in the town.
'Now, (residents) will have a place to go buy their milk and their their butter and eggs and all of that stuff,' she said, adding Murray works with local farmers to bring in fresh produce.
Hawa says a town grocery store is a community hub and hopes to see Murray's business expand.
'You've got to start small, and then from there you grow. I was joking with her the other day, in a few years from now, you're going to take over the whole bottom of this whole entire block,' she said.
'Just to have had the courage to even try this is a fantastic … thing for the community.'
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The Province
an hour ago
- The Province
Safe as houses? How Canada's ailing housing market could spell trouble for the whole economy
Real estate is not only a major source of wealth for Canadians, it's also one of the country's top economic drivers. Jordan Gowling looks at how one of the worst housing markets in decades could drag on jobs, government revenues and the stability of the financial system Homes under construction in Bradford, Ontario. Photo by Tyler Anderson/National Post Holly Calderwood has worked in the Vancouver real estate industry for two decades, and there's only been a handful of times when she has seen the housing market this bad. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors 'I think the last time I saw this was in 2008-2009 during the financial crisis,' she said. 'And in 2020 during COVID-19.' Calderwood has built a career specializing in selling luxury real estate from condos to waterfront properties, and she has recently noticed both a decline in sales and prices, as well as a rise in foreclosures. 'It really picked up last year, but this year, too,' she said. 'A lot of foreclosures and then you just see the price dropping. Sometimes people are losing a couple of million.' Calderwood attributes the causes for that trend to homeowners renewing at higher interest rates, a foreign buyer ban and a trade war with the United States that has put a damper on investment sentiment and demand. Economists and industry insiders say some markets have entered a buyer's market for the first time in years, with cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and even Calgary recording significant drops in sales activity and posting record highs in inventory. That could be a sign of price bubbles bursting, which is welcome news for would-be buyers, but could also spell trouble for the Canadian economy, which has relied on housing in recent years as an important economic driver, and it could lead to a drag on jobs, government revenues and the stability of the financial system. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The housing market recently peaked in mid-2022, before it started declining as the Bank of Canada began raising interest rates to deal with post-pandemic inflation. Earlier this year, the industry was hoping the market would begin a slow recovery after the central bank began delivering rate relief in 2024. Data from June and July seem to suggest a pickup in activity, but prices and sales are down compared to last year. Robert Hogue, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada, projects home resales will decline 3.5 per cent in Canada to 467,100 units in 2025, with the drop largely concentrated in Ontario and British Columbia. Trade uncertainty and general worries about the Canadian economy have been blamed for the slowdown, but some markets have also become unaffordable for many buyers. 'We have had a structural shift in interest rates,' Charles St-Arnaud, chief economist at Alberta Central, said. 'That changed the affordability equation quite significantly for many markets.' He said mortgage rates are 150 basis points higher than they were in the decade before the pandemic and that has left a lot of would-be buyers not being able to afford what they thought they could afford. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'That's why we've been seeing prices going nowhere; no one can afford to overbid for a house in aggregate,' he said. Gregor Robertson, seen here in 2018, is now Minister of Housing and Infrastructure. While Mayor of Vancouver he strove to end homelessness. Photo by Jason Payne/Postmedia Some politicians like to talk about lowering housing market prices as a social good, but housing and real estate investments remain a key economic driver for Canada and investors need to know they'll get a return on their money. In May, Canada's newly appointed Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said the quiet part out loud when he was asked whether house prices should go down. 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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The total residential dollar value of all homes sold in Canada in June was $33.1 billion, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association, compared to $25.1 billion in June 2019, which represents a 24 per cent increase in six years. This has been helped by an increase in the average home price, which climbed to $691,634 in June from $505,500 in June 2019. Mike Moffatt, an economist and founding director of the Missing Middle Initiative at the University of Ottawa, said governments are trying to achieve two things at once: restore affordability while also maintaining an environment that encourages confidence in the market and developers to keep building. 'The governments are trying to do two things that are, on the face of it, inherently contradictory,' he said. 'We do need prices to fall. But we've seen over the last three years what happens when prices continue falling. 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Some economists credited the previous surge in newcomers for masking the underlying weaknesses in the economy coming out of the pandemic as well as for keeping housing demand high in urban centres. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Butler said a combination of immigration curbs introduced last fall by the federal government and an increased number of for-purpose rentals entering the market are now the biggest contributors to a decline in rental prices. 'You literally couldn't imagine a worse set of circumstances (for these investors),' he said. Condo apartment sales have dropped by 75 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area. Photo by Cole Burston/Bloomberg Condo prices in Toronto's surrounding suburbs are recording even more significant drops than in the city itself, according to a recent report by Moody Analytics. For example, prices in Halton Hills have fallen by as much as 50 per cent from their peak. Prices are dropping elsewhere, too. The average national price of a one-bedroom rental unit in Canada decreased 3.6 per cent year over year to $1,857 in May 2025, according to the latest National Rent Report by and Urbanation Inc. 'Odds are that rent is probably going to continue falling over the near term, so I wouldn't expect investors to make their way back anytime soon,' Hogue said. He said the 10 per cent decline from the peak prices in the Toronto area is significant, but it has not completely reversed the price run-up experienced during the pandemic. 'A 10 per cent price decline historically would have been very significant and a big correction,' he said. 'But after the period we have gone through, it's only reversing a small fraction of the price increase we saw during the pandemic.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Investor speculation in the real estate industry has often been a point of criticism from housing advocates. Butler said today's condo market debacle is what happens when you build a product solely around the priorities of investors instead of homeowners since it can lead to an oversupply of a product no one wants or can afford. 'The model of building high-rise condos is that you have to sell 75 per cent of the building on a presale basis, with people who will give you 20 per cent down,' he said. 'First of all, a lot of first-time homebuyers don't have the 20 per cent or need to come by it slowly, and, secondly, most of the 75 per cent of presales were comprised of investors.' Investor participation in the real estate market has also been criticized for turning housing into an asset and for taking capital away from other productive parts of the economy. Canada's lagging business investment and productivity are longstanding issues. But many regular homeowners often use their houses as a funding source for retirement or it may be the only major asset they own. 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But once fast-growing markets such as Calgary are also facing more buyer-friendly conditions for the first time in years, though conditions are not as bad as they are for sellers in Vancouver and Toronto. Justin Warthe, a realtor and real estate investor in Calgary, said the city's benchmark prices rose above $700,000 during the 2022-2023 peak from the mid-$500,000 range in 2020. The market has cooled since mid-2023, when interest rates rose, and the market has returned to having more than three months of inventory. 'It's definitely more of a buyer's market right now,' he said. Warthe said he has to sit some clients down who think their houses will sell overnight and tell them that's not the reality anymore. Still, despite this softening in some markets, St-Arnaud said Canada's housing remains the most expensive in the G7. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'House prices are still 26 per cent above where they were pre-COVID,' he said. To get into the market, Canadians have heavily leveraged themselves, with residential mortgage debt reaching $2.3 trillion in February this year, compared to $1.6 trillion in 2019. Nearly half of all lending by Canadian banks is for residential mortgages. The increase in mortgages has led to an increase in household debt, though Canada's current debt-to-disposable-income ratio at 173 per cent is a slight decline from the 179 per cent reported in 2024. 'It's one of the highest in the G20,' St-Arnaud said. 'How much more debt do we want our households to take? How much more vulnerability?' The worst-case scenario for mortgage renewals if a longstanding global trade war leads to higher unemployment and depleted house prices was laid out by the Bank of Canada in its financial stability report in May. 'Results suggest that the share of mortgages in arrears by at least 90 days could rise to a level comparable with or higher than levels reached in the 2008-09 global financial crisis,' the central bank said. This is, of course, the most severe scenario policymakers worked out and does not represent a likely eventuality. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. About 60 per cent of mortgages in Canada will renew in 2025 or 2026, with 60 per cent of those mortgage holders expected to see an increase in their payments. That said, many of those mortgage holders are expected to be able to handle the higher payments. But, as many economists have noted, the mortgage renewal risk will only be contained if the labour market holds. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.9 per cent in July, but Statistics Canada said net employment has only increased by 27,000 since the beginning of the year. ' A chief risk officer will tell you the three most important things about mortgage default, it's unemployment, unemployment and unemployment,' said Butler. For now, the weakness has been driven by slow hiring, not layoffs, and recent GDP data suggests economic growth has merely flatlined in the second quarter, so the country has not entered a contraction. 'As long as there are no job losses, as long as people still have an income, we'll be OK,' St-Arnaud said. 'If there is a negative shock, if there is a recession and we start to see relatively big layoffs, I would be really concerned for the housing market and the ramifications to the broader economy.' But the unemployment rate is rising in many places. For example, the jobless rate hit 7.9 per cent in Ontario in July and increased to 5.9 per cent in British Columbia. The construction industry led the way, with employment down 22,000 positions in July after five consecutive months of little change in the sector, according to Statistics Canada's latest release. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The stalling economy seems to be affecting homebuilders. CMHC forecasts that housing starts will come in at 237,800 in 2025, down from 245,367 in 2024. The Crown corporation also forecasts 227,734 housing starts next year and 220,016 in 2027. Those figures are all well below the 430,000 to 480,000 new homes per year it said are needed to restore affordability to 2019 levels. 'We are seeing the most expensive markets experiencing a price decline,' Moffatt said. 'And because of it, new home sales have basically evaporated in those two markets.' Calderwood said developers are dealing with tariff-related cost increases and the new-build market has considerably slowed. 'I've had builders contact me and say it's the slowest they have ever seen it,' she said. Moffatt said this slowdown will only exacerbate the supply issue. It may be hard to imagine now, but that lack of supply could fuel another bubble in pricing by the end of the decade. 'If we go through a period where nothing gets built and then the economy improves, we're not going to have a lot of inventory once people are ready to buy again,' he said. Butler said the supply of homes that people want to buy will remain constrained for the foreseeable future. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The undersupply is in first-time, low-rise homes for people to buy, whether they're single-family, townhouses or semis,' he said. 'In that particular area, in Ontario and British Columbia, building of that product collapsed 16 months ago.' The CMHC expects the average house price to drop by two per cent this year, with a slow recovery starting in 2026 as trade tensions ease and economic conditions improve. Calderwood said markets can quickly change, but she remains pessimistic that things will improve. 'A lot of realtors say they can predict the market, but we're not psychics,' she said. 'As long as Trump is in power and with that all the tariffs and chaos, I don't see it trending upward.' • Email: jgowling@
Winnipeg Free Press
13 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Qantas fined $59M for illegal pandemic layoffs
MELBOURNE (AP) — A judge on Monday fined Qantas Airways 90 million Australian dollars ($59 million) for illegally firing more than 1,800 ground staff at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The penalty is in addition to the AU$120 million ($78 million) in compensation that Australia's biggest airline had already agreed to pay its former employees. Australian Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said the outsourcing of 1,820 baggage handler and cleaner jobs at Australian airports in late 2020 was the 'largest and most significant contravention' of relevant Australian labor laws in their 120-year history. Qantas agreed in December last year to pay AU$120 million ($78 million) in compensation to former staff after seven High Court judges unanimously rejected the Sydney-based airline's appeal against the judgment that outsourcing their jobs was illegal. The Transport Workers Union, which took the airline to court, had argued the airline should receive the largest fine available — AU$121,212,000 ($78,969,735). Lee ruled that the minimum fine to create a deterrence should be AU$90 million ($59 million), noting that Qantas executives had expected to save AU$125 million ($81 million) a year through outsourcing the jobs. Lee questioned the sincerity of Qantas's apology for its illegal conduct, noting that the airline later unsuccessfully argued that it owed no compensation to its former staff. 'If any further evidence was needed of the unrelenting and aggressive litigation strategy adopted in this case by Qantas, it is provided by this effort directed to denying any compensation whatsoever to those in respect of whom Qantas was publicly professing regret for their misfortune,' Lee said. 'I do think that the people in charge of Qantas now have some genuine regret, but this more likely reflects the damage that this case has done to the company rather than remorse for the damage done to the affected workers,' Lee added. Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson, who was the airline's chief financial officer during the layoffs, said in a statement after Monday's decision: 'We sincerely apologize to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result.' 'The decision to outsource five years ago, particularly during such an uncertain time, caused genuine hardship for many of our former team and their families,' she said. 'Over the past 18 months we've worked hard to change the way we operate as part of our efforts to rebuild trust with our people and our customers. This remains our highest priority as we work to earn back the trust we lost,' she added. Lee ruled that AU$50 million ($33 million) of the fine go to the union, because no Australian government agency had shown interest in investigating or prosecuting Qantas. 'But for the union … , Qantas' contravening conduct would never have been exposed and it would never have been held to account for its unlawful conduct,' Lee said. 'Hence the union has brought to the attention of the court a substantial and significant transgression of a public obligation by a powerful and substantial employer,' Lee added. A hearing will be held at a later date to decide where the remaining AU$40 million ($26 million) of the fine will go. Michael Kaine, national secretary of the union that represents 60,000 members, said he felt vindicated by Monday's ruling, which ends a five-year legal battle that Qantas had been widely expected to win. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. 'It is a significant — the most significant — industrial outcome in Australia's history and it sends a really clear message to Qantas and to every employer in Australia: Treat your work force illegally and you will be held accountable,' Kaine told reporters. 'Against all the odds, we took on a behemoth that had shown itself to be ruthless and we won,' Kaine added. Qantas has admitted illegally dealing with passengers as well as employees in its responses to pandemic economic challenges. Last year, Qantas agreed to pay AU$120 million ($78 million) in compensation and a fine for selling tickets on thousands of cancelled flights. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, a consumer watchdog, sued the airline in the Federal Court alleging that Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights from May 2021 through to July 2022 that had already been canceled.
CTV News
15 hours ago
- CTV News
Qantas fined US$58 million over illegally sacking 1,800 workers during pandemic
The tails of Qantas planes are lined up at Sydney Airport in Sydney, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) SYDNEY, Australia — Qantas Airways Australia's largest airline, has been fined A$90 million ($58.64 million) for illegally sacking 1,800 ground staff and replacing them with contractors during the COVID-19 pandemic, a court ruled on Monday. In imposing a penalty close to the maximum available for breaching Australia's workplace laws, Federal Court of Australia Judge Michael Lee said it was to ensure it 'could not be perceived as anything like the cost of doing business'. 'My present focus is on achieving real deterrence (including general deterrence to large public companies which might be tempted to 'get away' with contravening conduct because the rewards may outweigh the downside risk of effective remedial responses,' Lee said in a summary judgment. He said A$50 million of the penalty would be paid to the Transport Workers' Union, which brought the case on behalf of the 1,820 staff fired by Qantas during the pandemic. It comes around nine months after Qantas and the Union agreed on a A$120 million settlement for the sacked workers. Qantas shares were down 0.13% in early trade. (Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)
