Location

Conference Venue
Presenters
Do you provide invitation or visa letters?
Visa Information
Transportation within Montréal
Driving
Currency
Taxes
Tipping
Electricity
Language
Time

If you are joining us at the 2010 Management Conference, please download our delegate pack for more information.


Conference Venue

HEC Montréal
3000 chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine
Montréal, Quebec, Canada H3T 2A7
http://www.hec.ca/en/index.html
View using Google Maps


Presenters

Data projectors with computers will be provided in all of the parallel session rooms. We recommend that you bring your PowerPoint presentation on a USB memory stick. In addition, your presentation will need to be saved with the file suffix ‘.ppt’, not ‘.pptx’. The computers in the presentation rooms will not ‘recognize’ a PowerPoint presentation saved in the 2007 format (.pptx).


Visa Information

Please see ‘Customs and Immigration’ at this link http://montreal.com/tourism/general.html#Around.


Transportation within Montréal

The Montréal Metro is made up of 68 stations spread out along four lines. Please follow this link for more information http://www.stm.info/English/metro/a-index.htm.


Driving

Distances and speed limits are posted in kilometers throughout Canada. 60 mph roughly equals 100 kmh. Gasoline prices are in litres.

The main rule to remember about driving in Montréal is that you may not turn right on a red light, although this is now permitted in Quebec outside of the Montréal area.

Montréal presents a few hazards for drivers. Pedestrians are pretty blasé about crossing on red lights, and most road construction and repairs have to be done in the summer months so it’s not unlikely that you will run into a few detours when driving around town in the summer.

Seatbelts are mandatory even in back seats. Helmets are required for motorcyclists. It is obligatory to stop when a school bus is stopping, regardless of the direction in which you are driving. On a few major streets, bus lanes are marked with a large white diamond shape and you must not use and absolutely must not stop or park in these lanes within the hours noted on the accompanying signs. Some streets have bike lanes: these will be marked.


Currency

The unit of currency is the Canadian dollar. Coins are in denominations of 1, 5, 10 and 25 cents, and $1 (a large gold-colored coin) and $2 (a large bimetallic coin). Bills in $5 (blue), $10 (purple) and $20 (green) are in common circulation and you can get $50s (red) and $100s (brown) from banks, though not from most automatic teller machines (ATMs). Some stores are cautious about accepting bills larger than $20 because of counterfeits.


Taxes

Most goods and services in Quebec are subject to two taxes, a federal Goods and Services Tax of 5% (GST, usually listed as TPS on receipts) and a provincial sales tax of 7.5% (TVQ on receipts). A tax of 3% per night of hotel stay is also charged.

Books are not provincially taxed, and most groceries are not taxed at all unless something counts as ready-to-eat. Almost everything else is taxable.


Tipping

A tip of 15% is customarily left for waiters and waitresses at the table, calculated on the pre-tax total of your bill. It will not be calculated for you – the additional charges on a restaurant bill are taxes, not service charges, and are not voluntary. You are free to leave more than a 15% tip if circumstances warrant. In bars, the tip is handed over immediately as you pay for each drink or round. Taxi drivers also normally get a tip of 10 to 15%.


Electricity

Electricity in Canada is 110V and the plugs are the same as in the U.S. If you come from a country that uses 220V electricity, you will have to bring a converter.


Language

Quebec’s language laws impose restrictions on outdoor signs in languages other than French so you will see few signs in English, but in the parts of Montréal where most travellers go, services are available in English. French is heard in all parts of the city but in many neighbourhoods other languages will also be heard. Only half of Montréal’s residents speak French at home.


Time

Montréal is in the Eastern time zone of North America, 4 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time during the summer (Eastern Daylight, EDT) and 5 hours during the winter (Eastern Standard, EST). Daylight Savings Time is observed from the second Sunday in March till the first Sunday in November.
Especially in French it is usual to see times quoted in 24-hour format, e.g. 20h30 is the same as 8:30 p.m. Keep this in mind for the times of events and for parking restrictions noted on official signs.