Do not become a landlord in Quebec

My boyfriend and I purchased a property with his parents a few years ago as an investment. We rented it out, and for the first year everything went great. We had great tenants who paid their rent on time each month and caused no damage. However, we were not so lucky with our next tenants and eventually had to evict them.

In other countries, it's very easy to have an investment property. Often times there are property management companies that will do all the work for you, for a percentage of the rent. It's often affordable.

In Quebec, however, this is not an option. Unless you own many properties, and they generate a lot of income, then it's just too expensive to hire a property management company. For instance, if you rent out a property for $1000 a month, a management company will take at least $200 from you each month. They often don't handle everything either.

Also, if you only have one property to rent out and you want it insured, you will most likely have to pay for it yourself. You can't force your tenant to get insurance. I phoned insurance companies for quotes, and I was told it would cost around $300 for a policy that would cover fire, water damage etc. I was worried what would happen if my tenant burnt the building down. It was a townhouse condo, so if it burnt down, and thus damaged all the neighbours houses, the costs could have potentially fallen on us.

So if you want to have a company manage the property for you, and you want insurance, then after all your bills (in our case $300 a month for property tax, school tax and condo fees) you will not be left with enough money to realistically call it an investment.

But all of the above are the least of your worries when it comes to renting your property out in Quebec. This province has insane laws that protect the tenant beyond what I would call sane or fair.

You are supposed to provide your tenant with a lease. While there is a section that includes the date (start and end), it's completely irrelevant because there is only a beginning to a lease, never an end. In other words, the lease is automatically renewed every year forever, or as long as the tenant wants to live there.

Although it is "your" property, and "your" investment, the tenant can do pretty much whatever they want in there. It is illegal to force someone to give a damage deposit. Therefore, if they destroy your property it becomes your responsibility to get the money off of them to pay the damages. If the tenant is on welfare, it is highly unlikely that you will get anything back at all.  I spoke to several people at the Regie du Logement and they all said the same thing. It is also illegal to force a tenant to give you post dated cheques. Also, although technically you own the property, you can't ever get rid of a tenant unless it's through eviction for valid reasons or because you or a close family member (sibling, parent or child) plan to move in. Therefore, if you decide that you no longer want to be a landlord and would like them to leave so you can fix up your property and sell it, too bad! They can legally stay there as long as they pay rent. Period. So if you decide to sell the place, you are at their mercy every step of the way. Every time you want to go to the house to do any repairs, schedule potential buyers for visits etc. you have to give the tenant 24 hours notice. You therefore cannot ever guarantee that the house will look clean and presentable.

If you have a problem tenant, that's where things get really fun in this province. If your tenant is three weeks late in paying the rent then you can go to the Regie du logement and file an application for $66. Then approximately six weeks later there is a hearing. If the tenant has paid the rent and court fees then the case is closed and the tenant can stay. If the tenant pays the rent late every month then you are supposed to send them at least three letters asking them to pay on time. If they continue to pay late, then you can file an application, again for $66, and then in six weeks there is a hearing. If you can prove that the tenants late rent payments cause you "injury" (in other words, if it's your only property and you rely on the money to pay bills etc.), then they might evict the tenant. If you own multiple properties and do not suffer financially at all, then it's less likely the court will side with you. 

Approximately 99% of the time the judge will issue a court order which states that the tenant must pay their rent on time from now on. If they default on the order then they will be evicted. However, they can also appeal the verdict and cause delays. The laws have changed a little over the last couple of years though, and a tenant can't cause delays unless they have valid reasons. It's a lengthy process every step of the way. If the court decides to evict the tenant, then it's still not an immediate thing.  If the tenant is on a six month lease then they are given 30 days to move but if it's a year lease then they get 3 months.

The 30 days starts from the date on the verdict though, so even though you wait two weeks for it to be mailed to you, the date on the verdict is a week earlier. So that only gives the tenant 3 weeks to find a new place to live (if they have a six month or less lease). That is the only aspect I've seen in the laws that harms the tenant.

In my situation, we stupidly rented to someone without doing thorough background checks. She was a single mother with four children on welfare. To make matters worse, she had no job history, bad credit (which she told us up front) and no history of apartments she'd lived in. We demanded references, and when I phoned them both up, it was obvious that they were fake as they were unable to answer any of my questions properly, to the point that there were pauses and whispering in the background!

Warning bells went off in my head, and I definitely did not want to rent to this person. However, there were three other people who owned the property with me and I was outnumbered. Everyone else wanted to give her a chance. They felt sorry for her, and felt that sometimes people just need a break.

She paid us the first months rent before moving in. After that, however, every single month there after she was late. In all fairness, after 3 or 4 months we could have taken her to court and had a court order forcing her pay on time or else she'd be evicted. But we didn't know our rights at the time, and thought it would get better. It didn't.

After 7 months of late payments, we wrote a letter to her telling her we needed the money on the 1st. Then we had numerous conversations with her every few months telling her the same thing. Every month she had excuses. She was sick, her kid was sick, she couldn't make it to the bank, or sometimes it was just that she didn't have the money. She changed her phone number every few months and hardly ever answered the door so getting in touch was very difficult. Consequently, month after month we were left waiting at least a week for the money, never knowing when we were going to get it.

We let it go on for two years, with numerous letters, and phone calls. Each time she would say she'd change. I wanted to file the application after a year and a half into the lease, but was outnumbered again. This time the tenant was pregnant and the others didn't think it would be very nice to evict her at that time. So we gave her a "final" chance. We wrote another letter saying that we were going to file an application for eviction with the Regie if she continued to pay her rent late and that we were being nice trying to give her as many chances as possible.

She continued to pay late (in two years, she only paid the rent on time twice). After three more months of late payments we finally filed an application with the Regie du logement. She was absolutely frantic when she got the copy of the application and realized that we were trying to get her evicted.

She said that from now on she would pay us with post dated cheques. She also gave us money to pay for some of the damage her and her family had caused. Someone had kicked in the front door, and it was damaged beyond repair. It was secure, but needed to be replaced. She gave us $1000, which covered the cost for the door. However, there was also about $1000 worth of other damage which we never received.

So we had two post dated cheques from her, and she had given us the damage money to cover the front door. She seemed like she was really making an effort this time. We told her that if she paid us all the money for the damage and our court fees that we would cancel the application. However, on the day before we could cash the first cheque she called us up and told us not to cash the cheque because the money wasn't there!

That proved to us that she wasn't going to change, so we didn't cancel the application. At the court hearing the judge sided with us, as we had 10 or 11 receipts in the last year showing late rent payments. The tenant was not at all apologetic and acted like we were evil bastards for trying to steal money out of her kids mouths (by asking for the money to pay for the front door she damaged!) and by being so strict about asking for the rent money on the 1st.

The judge asked if there was an alternative date that could work for all of us, instead of always having to pay on the first of the month. We told the judge that in fact, we had tried to change the date before. I think we tried making it the third, or possibly even as late as the seventh. We tried it, and it didn't work.

The judge asked her if there was any way she could pay on the first of the month as the lease stipulates. She was unable to convince us or the judge that she could. So she was evicted.

As could be expected, she was very bitter about the whole thing and was very hostile with us when we went to her house after that. We expected rent money while she was still living there (even though legally she was only allowed to live there for half the month). Legally, we were entitled to a full months rent. She refused to give it to us. She simply asked us how she was supposed to pay for somewhere else to live and pay us too. As if that was our fault!

Two weeks before she was supposed to be out of the property one of her relatives called us and begged us to let her stay until she found a new place to live. I was against the idea, and had no sympathy after the way she had treated us. But once again, I was outnumbered and everyone else thought that it would be kind to let her stay in the property for a bit longer as she had so many children and they didn't want to see them end up on the street.

A week before the date that we had agreed was the absolute longest she could stay there I contacted her to inquire as to whether she had found a new place to live. At that point it became obvious that she had no intention of leaving and that if we allowed her to stay any longer then the court would consider her a tenant again and a new lease would have to be drawn up!

So we had to hire a bailiff. This was yet another lengthy and expensive process. When we contacted the bailiff, he took two days to deliver a notice to them saying that they had 3 days to move out, starting on Monday - apparently weekends don't count!

Of course, they still hadn't vacated the property after the 3 days. So the bailiff had to hire a team of movers to physically remove all of their belongings - all at our cost! Total cost for the bailiff was about $1100. 

Once the bailiff had insured that everything was gone, I was then left with a destroyed property.

All of the walls in the house were ruined. The place was initially covered in wallpaper, but with so many kids living in the house (it turned out that there were actually two combined families living there - so 10 kids, not 4) and all of the wallpaper was ripped and/or colored on with markers. There were numerous holes kicked and punched in the walls. Several of the doors were ripped off the hinges and very damaged, some beyond repair. The house had wall to wall carpet on two floors, it was all ruined with dirt, stains and burns. The basement was finished cheaply with vinyl floor and the walls weren't drywall. It was all ruined, the flooring was damaged, the walls were all buckling and had holes in them. 

It cost us thousands of dollars to fix up the property to sell it. Money that we were told by the Regie that we would not likely get back as the tenant was on welfare.

Which leads me to yet another reason not be a landlord in this province, at least if you are English. When you phone the Regie du logement you will never get to speak to someone who's mother tongue is English. They will speak English to you, but their level of comprehension is negligible. Therefore, you don't feel like you are getting accurate information. Many of the documents on their website are only available in French. When you receive the court verdict, the whole thing is in French. I don't even think you can obtain an English version, so have to rely on google translate. I had phoned them several times asking the same questions and I received different answers each time! They didn't understand what I was asking them! I actually got one of my friends to call them, as she is fully bilingual. I gave her a list of questions I wanted answers to. Well, the answers she got were once again different from all the answers I'd been given.

At the end of this experience, I've learned that you have to be well informed before becoming a landlord in Quebec. You need a lawyer, because the internet is filled with websites written in Frenglish legalese. There isn't anyone you can call for free accurate legal information. The Regie are not especially helpful unless you speak French. We phoned tenant hotlines but they were more knowledgeable about tenant rights. We phoned the Canadian housing and mortgage association because they have information on landlord and tenant rights. But they were useful only to a certain point.

Next, I would never rent to anyone unless they LOOK AMAZING ON PAPER. In other words, DO NOT be fooled by nice appearances or great personalities. Scam artists know how to say all the right things and put on a great show. What matters is what is on paper. Have an application form ready for them to fill out and read it carefully. Phone the references and have a list of questions ready to ask them. If they are their previous employers ask them specific questions like how long they worked there, when they started, when they left, why did they leave, were they punctual, did they get along with people, were they competent at their jobs. If it's a previous landlord, ask them how long the tenant lived there, when did they move in, when did they leave (by asking for dates you are getting specific and it will be easier to detect a liar) did they keep the house clean, did they pay their rent on time each month, were they noisy, were there any problems at all? Then do a credit check, and check for a criminal record. Although legally you can't refuse someone based on their record you can tell them you have found someone else if you don't want to rent to them.

I believe that people deserve chances too, but when you are trying to run a business (and that is what being a landlord is) you have to be logical and stick to the facts. You can't allow your emotions or feelings about the person influence your decision.

Until Quebec changes the laws to be more pro landlord though, it is just not worth the hassle. First off, landlords should have the right to demand a $2000 damage deposit before the tenant is allowed to move in. They should also be allowed to refuse people to have pets, and that if they get pets you can evict them. Same as smokers. Why is it that if you want to stay in a hotel for one night you aren't allowed to smoke unless it's a smokers room? Landlords should have the right to evict a tenant if the house and lease contract are not being respected. It should be a straight forward case that goes to court and results in eviction quickly. In other countries if you want to sell your property and need the tenants out so you can fix the place up, you simply write a letter and give them three months notice. I know, because it happened to me twice! Both times, I simply had to pack my things and leave. There was no choice, I couldn't go to court. But I understood, the owner needed his house back! That's life!

If a tenant is a pig, and you see cockroaches and you know they are ruining your house, you should be allowed to evict them! If a tenant can't pay the rent you should be allowed to contact a debt collector who will seize their personal belongings and retrieve the money for you. Most landlords are not going to want to spend years of their lives and thousands of dollars in court and bailiff fees to try and get a few thousands bucks in damages and unpaid rent. Tenants know this, and thrive on being able to get away with so much.

If you walk into a store, you can't trash the place or you will get arrested. Yet, it's ok to trash a house you rent. It doesn't matter, landlords are rich, who gives a crap about them? If you go to a restaurant, you have to pay for your meal. Or if you stay at a hotel, you have to pay for your room. Otherwise you could be arrested! Yet in Quebec, tenants can stay for at least a month in a place without going to court, and even when they are evicted (a process which takes at least 3 months) they can continue to live there rent free for at least 30 days, plus the extra week and a half it takes for the bailiff to act.

All I can say, is that unless the laws change eventually there won't be anywhere for people to rent anymore.

Quebec is known to have some of the most pro tenant laws in the world, so think carefully before deciding to become a landlord here!

Christiane F.

What is it about this book that haunts a person decades after reading it? I first read this book in the early 90's. Since then, I have read it over 20 times from start to finish and at least another 20 or 30 times to read certain parts.

Her life was actually quite tragic if you think about it. Her parents split up when she was young. When they were still together her dad was physically abusive to her as well as to her mother and sister. She didn't really have a close relationship with her mother. Her mother met another man soon after she split with her father. This guy was a bit of an asshole, he tried to act like he was Christiane's friend, but then started to try and control her, and gave her clear hints that she was simply in the way. Her sister moved in with her father. She was kind of alone.

She lived in tower block apartment buildings filled with poor people and undesirables. She was bored and had no activities to make her life more pleasant. So she took up smoking, first cigarettes then pot. She desperately wanted to be popular with the bad kids at school. She needed to have people in her life and she liked the idea of hanging out with the most glamorous students. Or that was how she saw it. She became friends with a bunch of people who liked to get stoned and drunk every day and she adopted that lifestyle. She spent most of her time ditching class and getting high with her friends. She was frequently stoned on LSD, pills and alcohol. She had cool dance clubs to hang out in where they played her favourite music, David Bowie. She had her first boyfriend and completely fell in love with him. Then he ended up on heroin. She soon followed. Before long she was addicted and was injecting herself with heroin every day. Then to support her habit she became a prostitute. So did her boyfriend. For the rest of the story she tried to quit at least a half dozen times, went through serious withdrawal only to then return to drugs.

Her life became quite grim. She was emaciated, her skin was grey and sallow, many of her friends overdosed and died, she was selling her body for money (though for the longest time denied having sexual intercourse until near the end when she describes screwing an older man named Heinz for heroin). She dropped out school, and her mother had given up on her.

In the end her boyfriend ended up in jail, one of her best friends died and her other best friend went to jail. She hit rock bottom. In the end she got off heroin, but still used hash.

She ends the book when she is 16 or so. But she ends up in the news for the rest of her life. She was a singer and put out a few albums, none especially successful. But most importantly, she was back on heroin.

She never got away from that life. But what is weird is that her life seemed glamorous and exciting when she was a teenager. A lot of people copied her life even though it was so miserable. But if anyone was to look at her life now, there is nothing glamorous about it at all. She has been living off of the royalties from the book (and possibly the movie too) ever since. She is in her 40's now, has a kid who she recently just placed in care because she could no longer take care of him due to her drug addiction.

Overall, this is not a happy story. It's really sad that she never succeeded academically after having been rejected from good schools due to her drug use. She herself seemed like a cool person, maybe that was what was so interesting about the book. It was written in her words so you really get to know her.

Maybe the story is interesting because she is young and naive and living in the moment. She fully embraces youth. She lives a bohemian peaceful type of life, rather than an angry, punk lifestyle, and seems to be down to earth.

She had a lot of friends, they were her family. Maybe that is part of what was so exciting. But either way, it shouldn't be the sort of life anyone would want to copy, and yet many people have. Instead of the book being a warning to teenagers everywhere that drugs are bad and that you should stay in school she is like a flashing neon light saying "over here, this way, come and do this it's fun!". Even though she sleeps with gross older men for money and is a total slave to heroin, her life still seems somewhat alluring.

The truth about Cannabis

There is a lot of information about Cannabis on the internet, but I just thought I would write something based on what I know.

I'm not really interested in the plant itself too much, in that I don't grow it (obviously...I don't relish the idea of spending any part of my life in jail!) so how it looks, how tall it gets, how bushy, how fat the buds are...none of that is really relevant to me.

It's interesting to learn about the different varieties and how different types of weed will create a different buzz. For instance the Sativa type of plant creates more of a head high and can cause you to be more creative, have magical thoughts and what not. The Indica variety will give you more of a body stone, which means you'll have a heightened awareness of your body while still feeling more clear headed. This is the type of weed most often used for medical Marijuana.

Cannabis is illegal, it has been for many many decades and will most likely continue to be illegal for many decades to come. The fact that there has been progress in making it legal for medicinal purposes doesn't really mean that we're any closer to seeing this stuff sold to the public. Even in Amsterdam, the laws are not as liberal as you might think. It's not actually legal there, it's decriminalized. Which means that you can legally smoke it and buy it from licensed coffeeshops but you can't have more than a certain amount on you at any time, you can only buy a certain amount at one time and you can't grow it.

Most people who use Cannabis, smoke it. It's the fastest, easiest and most convenient way to consume it. Some people eat it, but you'd need to use a fair bit (at least a gram even just for a cup of tea) and you have to use it with a fat, as it is fat soluble. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but you won't get the THC from the plant absorbed into your body without fat, it bonds to it. So in other words, you won't get stoned by just munching on a handful of weed.

Of the people who smoke it, most people smoke joints. They are fast and easy, and make smoking in public much easier. It's also much easier to share with friends that way. Unfortunately it's also the unhealthiest and least economical way to use it. Most people use tobacco in their joints for a smoother smoke and also because they think it'll make their weed last longer. It might mean that you can roll a few more joints, but the amount of weed you will need to get stoned won't change so you'll just end up rolling more joints.

Some people like water bongs. It's controversial as to whether it's any healthier to smoke this way. The theory is that the water would filter out some of the tars. There is a lot of mixed information about this on the internet though. Some people say that it also filters out the stuff that gets you stoned so you have to smoke more which makes it as unhealthy as joints. From personal experience, I'd have to disagree with that. A few hits from a bong will get me just as stoned as a joint will. It means that I use exactly what I need, no wasted weed and more control over how stoned I get. With joints you can smoke a joint quickly and then end up more stoned that you wanted.

Some people use vaporizers. Having never seen or used one, I'm no expert on how it works. I believe there is a heating element in it which controls the temperature at which the weed is heated. When it reaches a temperature that releases the THC then you can smoke it. It isn't really smoke though, as nothing has been burned, it's a warm vapour, so it's much healthier for your lungs. People that use medical Marijuana usually smoke it this way so as not to create additional health problems.

Which brings me to the actual benefits of this herb. A lot of people go around saying that it's an herb from the earth and therefore completely safe. It would be safe, physically, if you didn't smoke it. It's the smoke that causes the most problems. Any time you burn something and inhale it, it is toxic. Some people say that it is less toxic than cigarette smoke. I don't know. However, the two are smoked differently. Cigarettes have filters, which greatly help in reducing how much tar enters your lungs. Also, people that smoke weed tend to hold it in their lungs longer which isn't very healthy. Therefore, according to a lot of the info out there, one joint of weed is the equivalent to five or more cigarettes. Some people say it's like 20 cigarettes but I have a hard time believing that. I used to be a light cigarette smoker. However, there were nights when I'd go out and smoke a pack of cigarettes at a bar or a party. The next day my chest would be sore, my throat would feel scratchy and I'd be coughing a bit. I could definitely tell I'd smoked a lot of cigarettes the night before. With weed though, I could smoke a few joints and the next day not really feel very different.

Apparently there is not a single case of death directly related to weed. That is kind of a controversial statement. I'm sure that a lot of people are dead because of weed. First off, how many people have died due to gang related violence over selling or buying it? I'm pretty sure that many people have been killed by trying to steal from a field where it's being grown. There are probably a fair amount of people who have killed themselves after going through a Marijuana related psychosis. Some people develop schizophrenia which may have been triggered by weed. In other words, Cannabis does not cause the illness, but it can be triggered in individuals who might have a propensity to develop it. Well, some of those people might have gone crazy and killed themselves. Some people have died of lung cancer that might not have got it if they had never smoked. There is also a study out there saying that you are at a higher risk of developing a heart attack within the first hour after smoking. However, based on how much I have looked into any information on this I'm not sure it's accurate.

We know that there is a link between tobacco and lung cancer and there is a lot of advertising out there to discourage you from smoking. I would have thought that a heart attack would be a great scare tactic for anti drug campaigning. However so far, I've only read of one instance of a person dying from a heart attack after smoking weed. A mother in the U.K, who had a history of smoking weed, died of a heart attack at 38 years of age. It's impossible to know if she had a weak heart to start with or if she would have had the attack whether she smoked or not. There is just not any evidence that says 100% that the weed is what killed her.

I do still think that it should be legal. According to what I've read about Cannabis is the Netherlands, their crime rate has gone down and the rate of people who smoke has not gone up. I think that putting people in jail because they sell, grow, or smoke weed is just a waste of money, resources and time. But there is a lot of information on the American justice system and how they have privatized their jails so that it has become a profitable industry. They use the inmates as borderline slave labour. 25% of the worlds prison population live in the States. They have more of their population behind bars per capita than any other nation on the planet!

Clearly the war on drugs has failed. Young people are always going to find drugs. If you make drugs hard for them to get they will find more creative ways to get high. There is a legal weed you can buy in stores, which is marketed as an incense or something, but it'll get you high. However, there are no studies on what it is, or what is in it. So it's not really safe. Kids will sniff things out of aerosol tins, glue, they will steal their parents medication or find cold medication at the pharmacy. There are so many ways that a person can get high, and they will get high whether it's legal or not. It would just be a lot safer for everyone if it was legal. In the Netherlands their philosophy is that it's your body and your decision what you do with it. So by legalizing it, you aren't saying that it's healthy, and that you should use it. You are simply making it safer for people to use it who are going to use it anyway.

The same thing for heroin. There is enough evidence out there to show that using the drug is dangerous. Most people will never even try it. However, there are people out there who will try it and who will become addicted and will continue to use no matter how risky it is and no matter what they have to do to get it (steal, sell their bodies). By opening up centers for addicts you provide them with a safe place to inject with clean needles, a place to rest so they aren't passed out on the street and the possibility of getting treatment when they are ready. I also think it would be beneficial to just provide the addicts with pharmaceutical grade heroin. The catch would be that they would have to get and use the heroin at special centers. The benefit would be that it would be pure and safe. There are so many overdoses every day in Canada and the U.S and almost all of them could have been prevented if they had used clean and pure heroin. The stuff that is sold on the streets is always different, and often severely cut. The problem is that when an addict develops a high tolerance of the drug they get used to using a lot of it at one time. Let's say they usually inject a half a gram each time. If the stuff they use is usually very cut, then they can predict how high they will get. If they suddenly get their hands on very pure stuff and still inject a half a gram, they could die from an overdose.

Anyway, I'm too old be a stoner anymore. It was cool and fun when I was a teenager. It was an integral part of my identity and I chose friends based on whether they smoked. I never found a lot of people to smoke with who were as enthusiastic about it as I was, which looking back is probably a good thing. I still think it's a bit sad that our society gives young people "free passes" to be silly, party like crazy, get crazy wasted on alcohol, experiment with drugs and lot's of other things. Then suddenly you are a 30 something person and you are expected to have a good job, start a family, live in a nice house and just be "normal" which means that you don't get drunk anymore except on special occasions and even then you can't get "wasted" anymore it's just not cool. You most certainly can't smoke weed anymore. Come on, that's just for losers right? You see it in movies all the time. It's always the deadbeat loser who still lives in his moms basement, works as a cashier at a grocery store, is overweight and not overly hygienic and doesn't have a girlfriend. That's your stereotypical 30 year old stoner. They are often portrayed as being quite "dull", as in not very smart.

Of course, there also comes a time in a persons life when they start to realize their own mortality and try not to do things that will shorten their life. When you are 16 you feel like your whole life is ahead of you, so it really doesn't feel at all harmful or dangerous to get stoned or drunk. When you smoke cigarettes you know that at 16 your lungs are in pretty perfect condition and that when you stop you'll have plenty of time to heal. When you are in your 30's you don't feel like a young fresh human anymore, and you realize that smoking is terrible for your lungs, teeth and skin and you don't want to look like an old hag! With regards to getting drunk, when you are in your 30's the pain of the hangover the next day lingers in your mind as you drink and so you know when to stop. When you are 16 a hangover is a joke! Ok, I had some really bad ones where I would say that I would never drink again! But in your 30's, it's just really really awful and you end up in bed all day the next day!

Two weeks on a raw diet

I got a book out from the library on eating raw. It was all about detoxing and losing weight by not eating anything that's been processed. The whole point is to only eat foods that naturally occur in nature and therefore are easy to digest. If food is easy to digest then your body knows exactly what to do with the food in terms of using all the necessary protein and enzymes and then quickly expel it into waste.

If your body cannot use the food you put into your body it stores it as fat. According to the author waste equals weight. Waste food is stuff that has no nutrition. Things with chemicals in them and even things like milk and cheese.

So basically you are safe to eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and that's about it. You can eat other stuff like beans, butter, cream and bread but they are not the main things you should eat.

It was strongly recommended that you purchase a juicer. Not just any kind of juicer, it needed to be a masticating juicer instead of a centrifugal one. Well, sadly where I live they don't sell masticating juicers in stores. I would need to buy one online.

The point of a juicer is to be able to quickly and easily consume lot's of dark leafy vegetables without all the extra fiber which is harder to digest. It's a lot less work just sticking all the veggies into a juicer as chopping a massive amount of vegetables and then spending ages chewing it all is a very tiring process.

Well, after two weeks I was a few pounds lighter but I was suffering a lot of nasty cravings. I needed to eat a piece of toast with butter and honey at night before going to bed as I felt hungry. I felt hungry a lot. I ate fresh fruit for breakfast, a salad for lunch and then I would cook something for supper. Otherwise my boyfriend was unhappy with supper. He thinks I'm a great cook because I actually cook.

I own about 20 vegetarian cook books and so I have made about a hundred different dishes. Out of those about a dozen or so have been very well received by many people. So people call me a great cook. It's not very exciting to have a salad for supper when you are used to gourmet cooking.

Raw is a very difficult lifestyle choice. It's awesome, and healthy. There is no doubt about that. I made some rather tasty raw desserts. Most raw desserts consist of nuts, dates, agave nectar, lemon juice, fruit, coconut, cocoa. Not necessarily all together, but usually a combination of those things will get you pies, cookies, puddings, energy bars. They are very tasty and actually healthy. I made some raw vegan brownies one day and they were pretty good.

I just don't particularly like fruit all that much. I mean, I like fruit salads and smoothies. I enjoy bananas when they are yellow and firm but without brown spots. I just don't feel a wonderful sense of satisfaction eating fruit. I can't really get past how much I like cake and pastries. There is no substitute for cupcakes. There are many yummy treats to had on a raw diet. But there is no cake or pastry.

I bought a book from Chapters on raw food. I wasn't able to make one of the recipes because they all called for dehydraters. The recipes were also super time consuming and fiddly to make. So I didn't make any of them and returned the book.

It's really hard to eat healthy and still enjoy food. It's really hard to find a healthy balance between getting enough fruit and vegetables but then to also enjoy treats like cake, cookies, ice cream, pastries, french fries, pizza and other unhealthy, fattening stuff.

There really aren't many vegetarian cook books that cater to a dieting lifestyle. Again, it's easy to cook up a healthy meal, it's just really really hard to make it look good and taste good. I like restaurants and the feeling that I'm having something really special, exotic and exciting for supper. As a vegetarian living in Montreal I am limited to only a handful of restaurants to choose from. Most vegetarian restaurants are Asian. Then there are Italian restaurants that have a few items on the menu that don't have meat. But there isn't a single restaurant that serves up international vegetarian food fresh. Commensal is the closest, but it's a buffet. Which means that the food isn't cooked up fresh, nor is it usually hot. Also, the price is based on how much your plate weighs so you always feel paranoid to fill up your plate as you could end up paying $40 if you aren't careful. $40 bucks for food that isn't fresh or hot is a bit of a rip off. Also their desserts are often dry and stale.

It would be nice if their was a place that had nice decor, affordable food, good house wine, and a wide variety of items on the menu from all over the world. Like if was in sections...African, North American, Indian, Middle Eastern, Italian, Greek, Spanish. As well as misc. vegan and or raw options. That would be cool.

So because I can't go out for a gourmet meal that doesn't involve curry or pasta that's hot and fresh, I have to create the gourmet meal here at home. Sadly, I haven't found a raw cook book yet that has amazing gourmet recipes.

I suppose I will have to keep looking. I will also have to get a juicer, just so I can at least be healthier and manage the weight a bit better. I'm sure it won't taste great, but I guess you can't indulge in culinary greatness every minute of the day. That would be too close to what paradise would be like that!

Heroin chick still alive after 15 years

I recently saw a picture of someone I knew a long time ago. She had some addiction issues and I wondered if she was still alive. Based on the pic I saw, she is alive and well, and damn, she looks great!!!

She looks exactly the same as how I remembered her from 15 years ago. It's depressing. I don't smoke, drink to excess, do drugs and yet in comparison I look like total crap. It makes me think, why bother trying to be good!!! Why not just get out there and party my head off, get wasted all the time, have a constant stash of unhealthy things. Why bother trying to be healthy at all!!! She looked happy and healthy and yet in the picture seemed to be holding a joint!!! When I pictured how she would look after 15 years of rough living I guess I pictured a homeless looking person. Not some young looking hot, happening chick.

I guess that makes me bitter doesn't it? I don't know anything about her life, whether she is actually happy, or even healthy. It's just a picture, and I don't even know when it was taken! Maybe it's an old pic. Who knows.

I just wonder what the point is sometimes, trying to be healthy and living right. I mean, when my number is up, it's up. I know two people who don't smoke who have battled lung cancer. One of them smoked, but it's been over twenty years since she stopped. I know people who ate lot's of vegetables and avoided process foods, spent time outdoors gardening, and then died of cancer. It makes me wonder if cancer is actually related to anything at all!

Why I became vegetarian

I became vegetarian in the summer of 2000. I had been been exposed to vegetarianism in college, as I was in an alternative program. We used to have weekly potlucks and there was an unwritten rule that you DO NOT bring meat! There were a lot of activist type people in the program, the sort of people that give regular vegetarians a bad name! They would loudly talk about their beliefs to anyone who would listen, and they were extremely descriptive about them. Basically at that time, I thought they were all a bunch of weirdos. I had never been exposed to different types of people, I grew up in the suburbs. Homosexuals, Pagans, fairy believers, activists, you name it, they were all in this program. I wanted some meat at the potlucks and I resented them for us meat eaters not being allowed to indulge. However, making them angry didn't seem worth it, so we all let them have their way.

In the beginning, I thought the food looked gross and weird. There were many colourful salads each week, and I was not an avid vegetable eater. Each week my plate usually had bread, potato chips, cookies and maybe some pasta. However, everything that I heard about eating meat was settling inside my brain somewhere and I started to be conscious about it whenever it was on my plate.

I started to think about that sliced ham I was sticking in my sandwich, and wondering about the pig that once was, who no longer lived, who was about to be part of my lunch. I wondered why lots of small cow bits needed to be in my spaghetti, isn't tomato sauce and vegetables enough?

I never liked meat that had blood in it, rare meat, I think I always found that gross. Seeing veins in my chicken was rather unsettling as well. I was however guilty for the most part of not questioning the meat on my plate for the most part through out my life. My mom cooked supper and I was brainwashed to believe that meat was one of the food groups that I had to eat in order to be healthy.

I became vegetarian when I met my current boyfriend. I was very impressed when he told me he was vegetarian, and I felt horribly guilty about eating meat after that. We were kindred spirits and bonded on a very deep level, and I realised that there was no excuse for me to eat meat.

I'm not a scientist, and I don't have exact figures on the global impact of the meat industry, but here is what little I do know:

• The amount of grain and water it takes to make a pound of beef could feed a LOT of starving people.
• Cows produce methane which is comparable to the exhaust produced from cars. Bad for the environment.
• The waste produced from animals on farms pollutes lakes and rivers.
• Across the planet, forests are being ripped down every day to make room for livestock. They eventually destroy the land making it infertile. Forests cannot grow there again for a while. Forests are like a natural air filter, once they are gone, air quality diminishes.
• Factory farming is how most animals are farmed. This means that they often live in unsanitary, small, diseased spaces and suffer enormous cruelty.
  
• The animals are fed a lot of hormones to ensure they grow as big and fat as possible, which people in turn eat. They are also fed antibiotics as there are a lot of diseases amongst the animals, mostly due to too many animals living in a small space and it not being very sanitary.

I love animals and I believe that they deserve to live happy healthy lives. What happens to these animals is a continuous Holocaust in my opinion. They live in "camps", someone decides when to kill them, they have no dignity, are tortured and eventually murdered. A lot of the meat from their bodies goes in the garbage after it's been in the supermarket for too long, meaning that their death was a complete waste.

A person can be very healthy without eating meat, they just have to educate themselves about healthy eating.

Boring Suburban Life

Sometimes I wonder what it's all worth. What it all means. Somehow, this whole suburban way of life just doesn't make any sense and seems completely worthless and pointless.

I look around, and while yes, there are lot's of trees, there are even more cars and just as many stores everywhere. There are a few main roads that have stretch mall after stretch mall with the mega big stores of everything and the giant parking lots full of SUVs and Jeeps and Mini Vans and other large and annoying gas guzzlers.

Everyone looks and dresses the same, the teenagers even look the same. People work their boring 9-5 jobs so they can buy stuff then they work some more to pay off their debts. There aren't very many places to go look at art, and when you find one you find that it's all Suburban moms with screaming kids or snobby old people who look you up and down to see if you are wearing as expensive an outfit as they are.

I just wonder what makes people around here happy. There isn't anything around the suburbs to do except shop. Buying things provides a temporary rush, but it's shallow and short lived. Then you have to buy more stuff to feel good. What is the point? No object can actually bring true happiness. So again, what is the point?

Out here in the suburbs people act like everying in the world and in their lives is all about the children. Got to make this a better world for the children. Like they actually do anything to improve the situation. There's no compost program out here, a lot of people still don't recycle. They buy so much stuff that comes in excessive packaging that they can't be environmental even if they tried. They live in super big houses and leave all the lights on. They drive gas guzzling vehicles with only one person in the car to go to work. Public transit is appalling out here, waiting for a bus for half an hour is just not excusable. Especially since winter temperatures drop to -30 C. So I understand why people drive. I drive, a small vehicle mind you, but I am guilty of not taking public transit. It's just sinful when it takes an hour and a half to get somewhere by bus when I can drive there in 10 - 30 minutes.

But I digress. This is supposed to be about the boring suburbs. Well, I'll say this, just about everyone seems pretty miserable. Can't get a smile out of cashiers half the time, people drive like angry miserable lunatics ready to kill or attack or cause damage. Bullying behaviour it is. It's scary. People get impatient if you are driving 50 km in a 40 zone. They'll tail gate you, and then agressively pass you in a giant hissy fit. To me, it seems that deep in their souls they realise that working 9-5 at some pathetic boring office job where they make pitiful money and have huge levels of stress to contend with, not to mention having to deal with horrible people all day that they can't stand. Then they get home and have to rush around for another few hours, worrying about kids and their homework, baths, dinner, clean up. They are left with maybe an hour to themselves if they are lucky, then have to go to bed in order to get up the next day to start it all over again.

Then the glorious weekend comes along. TGIF. Yey. Two pathetic days off. Two days to catch up on the managerial side of life. Clean the house, do the laundry, do the grocery shopping, tend to all the kiddie activities. Maybe order a pizza, go to a movie, see some friends. Then spend half of a day sleeping, or zonked out watching sports on t.v and drinking beer. Then it's Monday again. Back to the grind. They realise that nothing that they have is really theirs, everything they have they bought on credit. So they have to keep working at those jobs they hate. Those horrible slave driving places that steal away your life energy and give you paper to trade in for material objects in return. You can't buy freedom or happiness. But advertising companies make you believe that if you have that car, that necklace, perfume, perfect image etc. That maybe you will be happy and your life will seem worthwhile. It's such a disapointment to discover how shallow it all is.

Not that life in the city is all fun and games. The bars and lounges are filled with young trendy people. Even artsy people who might seem more interesting than your average suburbanite, are still cliquey and judgemental. They'll look at you to see how you are dressed, how your hair looks, if you are fat or thin, young or old. Bottom line, how cool you are. It's high school all over again. Art galleries are all about image and personality. Connections. Phoney Shmoney crap. Fake smiles everywhere you look, you have to scmoooze your way to the top, connect with everyone important. Of course the important people also live in big houses, drive fancy cars, wear expensive suits and cologne, have the trophy wife on their shoulder.

There is something inherently wrong with western civilization. Whether you are in the States or Canada, suburbs or city. Everyone is after the same thing. To be rich and live a prosperous life. To be successful. The first question people ask you when you meet someone new, is "what do you do." On the surface, it might seem like a harmless question, just a common ice breaker. But it's so much more than that. People judge people based on what their occupation is. If the answer is "I'm a doctor" or "lawyer", you get raised eyebrows and there is suddenly a lot of interest. People want to get to know you, find out about you and automatically respect you. If, however, your answer is "I'm a cleaner" you will look at a blank face which you know is inwardly thinking "oh, this person must be a bit of a loser" or maybe kind of stupid. At any rate, obviously a nobody and therefore not worth getting to know. No connections will be made through this person so it is time to move on.

I dream of a utopia where everyone works together towards a common goal that makes everyones lives better. A better environment to live in. Better and healthier food to eat. Easy, cheap and environmentally friendly transportation so that everyone can get to where they want to go in a quick and efficient way. Entertainment that enriches our lives instead of stealing our lives as an escape from our misery. A place where environmentally unfriendly things can't be produced, consumed bought or sold. They just won't exist. Where we can exist in harmony with the planet instead of being constantly at war with it and each other. Where people treat animals with love, compassion and respect. Everyone would be vegetarian. There would be a new and efficient way to test medication. Ideally it should be tested on people who try to ruin the utopia by stealing, murdering, showing all the negative human traits, destructive behaviour.

Sadly, this utopia is just a dream. I will probably not see this place in my lifetime. But I know that if it exists in my brain, then it exists in many other peoples brains and that one day all the people who share this utopic dream can find each other and actually make it a reality. Obviously there are some things we wouldn't be able to do, like test medications on humans instead of animals. But many other things can be done...