Montrealers Vote 2025: One-on-one with Projet Montréal leader Luc Rabouin

Montrealers head to the polls November 2 to elect their next mayor.

Luc Rabouin, leader of Projet Montréal and mayoral candidate joined CityNews for a one-on-one interview about the upcoming election in Montreal. Rabouin spoke about his priorities and how he hopes to make the city more sustainable and accessible for everyone.

A recent Leger poll indicates that Ensemble Montréal has a nine point lead in the polls at 21 per cent with Projet Montréal stands at 12 per cent. But the largest number of voters are the undecided at 42 per cent. How do you intend to bridge the gap with Ensemble Montréal, but also make sure that those undecided voters vote in your favour?

LR: The large majority of the Montrealers still haven’t made their choice, so we have to convince them to be interested in the campaign, to be informed about the proposals, and to vote of course. This is very important for our democracy. From my part, I am the leader of Projet Montréal, I understand that Montrealers want change. They really want change, but they don’t want to go backward. And this is what is our challenge, is to propose them that we are the change, we want to go further, we want to go forward, and I believe that our proposals will align with the priorities of the Montrealers. This is my commitment, when I run for the leadership of Projet Montréal, I said I will propose tangible concrete proposals to face the priorities of Montrealers, and this is exactly what we are doing.

How do you differentiate yourself from your predecessor, Valérie Plante?

LR: We have a team, we have young people, new people that are coming in our party, we have a large part of new members, we have people that are in the party since four years, like the mayor of Côte-Des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-De-Grâce, Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, who has been there for four years. I’ve been there for six years, so we have a good representation of newcomers and also people with experience. I focus on solutions, concrete solutions. I’m not dreaming, I’m proposing concrete solutions to face the priorities of Montrealers. I’m a leader that has a vision, we are Projet Montréal, so we have clear social and environmental values, this is the same party, but I am a person that is pragmatic, I want to propose concrete solutions that are feasible by the city. Without waiting for the other level of government. It’s my proposal to develop some solutions that we can do, the city of Montreal.

One of the biggest issues that a lot of Montrealers are talking about is the housing crisis, limited spacing, rising costs, how would you tackle that if you’re elected mayor?

LR: Housing is the first priority of Montrealers and this is my first priority, and this is why I decided to run for being the mayor of Montreal, to face the crisis, and in Projet Montréal, we don’t believe that the free market will resolve the problem. Just look at Toronto or Vancouver, where the free market was really open, and the city is not affordable. Projet Montréal, wants affordable city for everybody, and it’s why we insist to have a bylaw that makes it mandatory for developers, when they develop units, we need more units, but we need units for everybody that the normal people can afford, and this is a main difference between Projet Montréal and Ensemble Montréal, Soraya Martinez Ferrada’s party.

Another issue is the increasingly visible homelessness crisis, whether it’s right here in the downtown core or in other neighborhoods, and people are feeling increasingly unsafe as a result. Shelters are overflowing, encampments are growing, how do you plan to address this?

LR: We are facing a very, very huge crisis, it’s a public health crisis, it’s not just in Montreal, it’s the case in other cities in Canada, but also in Quebec, even in small cities in Quebec, they are facing the homelessness crisis. The extreme vulnerability of people that are living in the street, it’s quite new, it’s a new phenomenon, and in Quebec, the responsibility for public health is under the government of Quebec responsibility. But the people who live that, they are on our streets, they are our neighbours, and it’s why I decided to embrace this issue as the next mayor of Montreal, to do everything we can do as the city government. We can do more, and it’s why we propose to develop 1,000 transitional units to be sure that we can bring people out of the street and offer them safe places to be in, between finding a long-term apartment. We have to do these kind of things, and with these proposals, I believe that I will be able to convince the government of Quebec to do more. I want to show the example, the city will do more and we will talk with the government of Quebec to be part of the solution, because we absolutely need them.

One thing that came up with transport advocates was this idea of a 15-minute city, getting around in 15 minutes. We’ve seen STM strikes, we’ve seen increased congestion, traffic, how are you going to alleviate that and make sure that Montrealers spend less time in their cars getting to a destination or on public transit and more time at that destination?

LR: This idea of the city of the 15 minutes, it’s Projet Montréal vision for the city. This is our trademark, this is what we believe and it’s why we are building access to green spaces, access to affordable housing, access to culture, access to different forms of mobility. This is what we want to develop and regarding mobility we also propose to develop an express bus network, so to facilitate the people who are using buses every day, who are stuck in traffic, we have to facilitate their movement and to encourage them to use the buses, because if more people use public transit, it will mean less cars we have in the congestion. Everybody knows that the main way to face congestion is to offer options in public transit and also in active transportation. We don’t propose to wait for 18 months before developing new bike paths and we don’t propose to remove maybe some bike paths like Ensemble Montréal proposed. This is a very huge difference.

You often talk about building ‘a city that cares,’ what does this vision mean in practice for families, and how will you ensure these measures actually keep young families from leaving Montreal?

LR: Projet Montréal always focuses on the quality of life in our neighborhoods for families. This is the main way we can keep families in Montreal because it’s the best place in the world to grow up with your kids. I did it with my kids and this is the best place, and we have the advantage of a great city in terms of vibrancy, culture, access to public transit and we have the quality of life of a human scale city. This is how we work and we want to focus, but we also have to offer affordable housing and this is very crucial in the strategy. If we want to keep families in Montreal, we just can’t count on the free market. It will not work. The available apartments will be too expensive and the families will leave Montreal because it’s too expensive. It’s why we have to develop non-market options for housing and that we have to make it mandatory to have affordable housing in every single project of development units. We don’t just need more units, we need affordable units for everybody and to keep families in Montreal, this is one key thing that we have to develop.

What makes you the right person to lead Montreal for the next four years?

LR: I’m totally motivated. I’m not a career politician, it’s been just six years that I decided to jump into politics. I have the experience of being a mayor of a borough, Plateau borough. I was in charge of the economic development at the Executive Committee. I have a large background for 25 years involved in different organizations in Montreal, a lot of experience in management of organizations, so I think I have all the qualities required to make decisions to take care of the people and to take care also of our economy in this period of uncertainty.