Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The central issue was whether the defendants operated — or gave cause to believe they operated — an unregistered tourist accommodation establishment under the Loi sur l'hébergement touristique.
• Liability under the applicable provision is strict, meaning the prosecution did not need to prove the defendants' intent to commit the offence.
• Three elements were required for conviction: that the property constituted a tourist accommodation establishment; that the defendants gave cause to believe they operated one; and that no classification attestation had been issued.
• Contradictory evidence emerged between the prosecution's three-line summary of a conversation suggesting weekly rentals and the defendants' corroborated testimony and documentary evidence of monthly-only rentals.
• Rental duration was the determinative fact, as the obligation to hold a classification attestation applies only to rentals not exceeding 31 days.
• All three defendants — 9469-9485 Québec inc., Lucie Larochelle, and Onil Nicol — were acquitted after the court found the prosecution failed to prove the offence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Facts of the case

On November 8, 2024, Inspector Diop of the Agence du revenu du Québec (ARQ) came across a room rental listing on Facebook Marketplace advertising a property located at 121 avenue Gouin in Amos, Quebec. The inspector exchanged messages with Lucie Larochelle, the author of the listing, who confirmed the room's availability and described its features — including a price of $550 per month, with an optional internet add-on for $50 more — and directed the inspector to contact Onil Nicol for further details. Larochelle is the spouse of one of the co-shareholders of the defendant company, 9469-9485 Québec inc., while Nicol is the other co-shareholder and serves as the property manager of the company's real estate portfolio. On November 13, 2024, Inspector Diop asked his colleague, Arnaud Guy-François, to call Nicol directly. According to the prosecution's infraction report, Nicol indicated that the room could be rented for 15 days at $375 per week. The property at 121 avenue Gouin was not registered as a tourist accommodation in the Ministère du Tourisme's databases, and no classification attestation had been issued for it. The ARQ charged all three defendants with operating, or giving cause to believe they operated, a tourist accommodation establishment without registration, contrary to Article 28 of the Loi sur l'hébergement touristique (LHT).

Statutory provisions at issue

Article 2 of the LHT defines a tourist accommodation establishment as one where at least one accommodation unit — such as a bed, room, suite, apartment, or house — is offered for rent to tourists for remuneration for a period not exceeding 31 days. Article 28 of the same law provides that anyone who operates, or gives cause to believe they operate, such an establishment without it being registered commits an offence. Three elements must be established: that the property is a tourist accommodation establishment; that the defendant gave cause to believe they operated one; and that no classification attestation had been issued as required by law.

Reasoning and analysis

The court framed the key question as whether the rental duration was less than or equal to 31 days, since that threshold determines whether the registration obligation applies. On one side stood the prosecution's documentary evidence — a three-line summary in the infraction report of the November 13, 2024 conversation between Inspector Diop's colleague and Onil Nicol, suggesting the room could be rented weekly. On the other stood the defendants' corroborated testimony and their documentary evidence, including internal email exchanges (D-1), correspondence with other tenants (D-2), sample invoices (D-3), a log of rooms rented monthly between October and December 2024 (D-4), and fiscal records of tenants occupying rooms as of December 31, 2024 (D-5). The court applied the framework from R. c. W.(D.), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742 to assess the contradictory evidence.

The court rejected the prosecution's position that the Facebook listing — which stated "$11,111 CA/month" — could be read as implying a short-term or weekly rental. Citing ARQ c. Croteau, 2025 QCCQ 7995, the court noted that an advertisement need not explicitly mention short-term availability for an offence to be established, but in that case the offence arose because the respondent had explicitly offered weekly rentals in a written exchange with the inspector. No comparable offer appeared here. The court also drew on ARQ c. Renaud, 2024 QCCS 2773, applying the objective-person standard to ask what a reasonable person would conclude upon reading the advertisement. The court found that a reasonable person consulting the listing — which showed a monthly price — would not conclude that short-term rentals were available.

Onil Nicol's evidence was detailed and consistent: all rentals required a commitment of at least the remaining days of the current month calculated on a pro rata basis, followed by full monthly renewals, ensuring no tenancy ever fell below 32 days. An internal email exchange (D-1, page 4) provided a concrete example: "starting October 15, 2024, invoice $225, no wifi; in November it will be $550." Larochelle and Nicol's testimonies were unshaken in cross-examination, and the supporting documentary evidence corroborated their account of the rental method. The court found the defendants' version credible and concluded that the prosecution had not established beyond a reasonable doubt that rentals were offered for periods of 31 days or less.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Court of Québec, per the Honourable Marie-France Beaulieu, acquitted all three defendants — 9469-9485 Québec inc., Lucie Larochelle, and Onil Nicol — of the charge under Article 28 of the LHT. The court found that the rentals were made for periods exceeding 31 days, that the property did not constitute a tourist accommodation establishment within the meaning of Article 2 of the LHT, and that the defendants had not given cause to believe they operated an unregistered tourist establishment. Because no offence was made out, the court did not proceed to analyze the alternative defence of due diligence. No monetary award, damages, or costs were specified in the judgment.