Quebec’s biz registry says no to ‘Ministry of Cricket’ name
Angus Bell has called himself Quebec’s first self-appointed Minister of Cricket. The Scottish-born Montrealer is opening a multi-sports centre in September to provide a home for sports that lack proper facilities. However, the name he chose for his business, Ministry of Cricket and Other Homeless Sports, has been rejected by the Registraire des Entreprises — twice.
The most recent rejection came on Friday, Bell said. “We tried with multiple names this time,” Bell said, including Ministry of Cricket and Other Homeless Sports and Ministry of Cricket (along with those names in French).
According to Bell, the name was rejected because it sounded too much like a non-profit organization.
“It’s a very silly name that makes everybody laugh when they hear it, and they say, ‘That’s a great name.’ Except for the Registraire des Entreprises,” Bell said.
“Now we might have to call it ‘M du cricket et autres sports orphelins.’” Bell said he is working on refiling another application with that name, but did not know when it would be filed.
Revenu Québec spokesperson Geneviève Laurier said she couldn’t comment on specific cases.
The Registraire governs corporations in Quebec, and is responsible for incorporating businesses and approving their names. Its website states that business names “must not falsely imply that the enterprise is a non-profit group or a public authority or that the enterprise is linked to such an organization.”
According to data from Quebec’s Registraire des Entreprises, there is currently a Ministry of Pizza operating in Quebec City. The name is listed as one of the other names for the business — the official name on the registry is the business’s corporation number. The business was not known as the Ministry of Pizza until 2014.
Two other “ministries” were registered in Quebec until 2005: The Ministry of Hip-Hop in Dollarddes-Ormeaux and the Ministry of Sound in Montreal. Most other businesses registered as ministries are religious organizations.
Cricket is Bell’s passion — he founded the only social cricket club in Montreal, the Pirates of the St. Lawrence, in 2007 — but he said he knew his business would have to be multi-sport to be successful. He’d noticed a dearth of indoor and well-maintained facilities for sports like soccer, cricket, baseball and rugby. “Outstanding ” outdoor cricket batting cages opened last year in Park-Extension’s Howard Park, Bell said, “but we needed something indoors.”
“Ten years, I’ve been working in sports administration,” Bell said. “Everybody came to me and said, ‘We need a home. We can’t play in these horrible school gyms anymore.’ “
“For batting cages you have to drive miles,” he said. Bell’s centre is located more centrally, he said, on Mazurette Street near Marché Centrale in Ahuntsic-Cartierville.
“At the end of the day we’re still going to call ourselves the Ministry of Cricket and Other Homeless Sports,” Bell said. ‘It’s our name. We’ve been marketing ourselves for 18 months. Our website is in that name. All our clients know us by that name. We can’t change it.”
“We don’t want to make enemies here, we just want to open our business.”