Montrealers Vote 2025: One-on-one with Action Montréal leader Gilbert Thibodeau

Montrealers, head to the polls November 2 to elect this city’s next mayor.

Gilbert Thibodeau, leader of Action Montréal and mayoral candidate, joined CityNews for a one-on-one interview about the upcoming election in Montreal. Thibodeau spoke on the accountability he is looking to bring to office.

Let’s start off, I think what most Montrealers want to know is, what is Action Montréal and why is your party running? What can they offer to Montrealers?

GT: Well Action Montréal is a party that we think we can win. Now, why? We should talk about money first. We don’t know exactly where the hell goes the money in Montreal. There are $7 billion budget and we’re looking how come every year we don’t have the service that we deserve. When I say we, you, me and everybody here, we need service. Where the money goes because we don’t have the service that we used to have. So we should start with the money. We will find it and then we’re going to help everybody to be well served. I’m sure you will talk about the cycling path, the parking. There’s too much for one part of the population. We have to think of everybody. People who walk, people who take bicycles, people who take cars. And especially, how do we say, the small business? How do you say that? Uh, merchants. Small commerce? Yes. We need to think about them because we’re going to lose Montreal. Every neighbor needs a small business to make the area a life. That’s a big problem now. We have a big problem. We’re going to lose Montreal to make it simple. That’s why we’re running for it.

You position yourself as a businessman who wants to bring accountability and efficiency to City Hall. You want to make the city better. Why are you the best leader to do that?

GT: You said it better than me. That’s exactly what I wanted to say. Why me? Because I have businesses and I do. I am a businessman and I live in Montreal. I’m born in Montreal. My grandfather was born in Montreal, businessman. We all love Montreal and we saw what happened. We’re not going the right way. By the way, maybe we’re too much on the left. We’re not on the right way. Something else besides economic development and helping businesses thrive that Montreal is worried about is the housing crisis. The lack of affordable housing. We’re constantly seeing new renovations, new constructions, but none of those housing are reachable and attainable to the average Montrealer. What are you going to do to change that? We have to balance. We’re talking about the housing market. We have to balance it. Now, there’s a rule. It says 2020, 2020 and then do whatever you want. Or you pay a penalty if you don’t want to listen to the new rules in Montreal. First, we have to get out of that. And then 2020 is the worst thing that happened in Montreal. We have to balance what’s happening. It’s not about 20,000 or 30,000 or 50,000. I’m talking about 150,000 large amounts. We don’t have that now and the administration are killing Montreal with that 2020. We’re going to put it out and then it’s going to be tough. I’m telling you, it won’t be and I’m not a liar. It won’t be in three months, six months. I cannot make a promise fast because we lost the people who want to develop Montreal. They are pissed off with all the rules and how long does it take to get the permit? Sometimes it takes 410 days. As you know, it’s more than a year. People are getting, no, we’re not doing Montreal anymore. So they go to Brossard, Repenyigny, Valley Field, Saint Thérèse, Laval. All over Montreal, around Montreal, most of them says, I’ll never come back until there’s a new administration. Here we are.

We often look at the never-ending construction in the city and people constantly complain about the lack of coordination or maybe not knowing when construction is happening. What are you going to do to fix this issue?

GT: You’re so right. They call it ghost construction. Ghost, because nobody moves. You see orange cones, this is the logo of Montreal now and the contractors know there’s no coordination. Like you said, nobody knows who is the boss. So they say, okay, we’re going to put cones and we’ll start a new project and then they let that go. We have to help Montrealers know what is happening. Now we are engaging people from outside, consultants or whatever to help us. But how can we develop Montreal? How can we make Travaux public? It is supposed to be done in house. Now we ask people from outside, please help us. It costs a fortune. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They don’t care. They just say, hey, we’re going to help you as long as you pay us. We have to change all that from the inside. And by the way, if you’re elected, it is because you know Montreal and you know what we need. This is, we call the cone city.

Another big worry Montrealers have is the increasing visibility of homeless people. How are you going to help with this crisis?

GT: Nobody resolved the problem. They just call the police and say, hey, move them elsewhere because people are pissed. Nobody tried to find a solution. We need to make them happy. I’m not sure if they know exactly what they’re doing because they, like you said, it’s on their own. They don’t know. We have to make them, I’m saying happy. They should be helped to recognize they lost their mind and we need to help them to come back to life in Montreal. I don’t know how to say it, but it should be so easy. We have so many places in Montreal. There’s 80 buildings in Montreal. Nobody uses it. It’s owned Montreal. We pay electricity to be sure the water doesn’t break it. Nobody wants to use it. Now they are renting mobile houses from up north and they say, yes, we’re going to give each of them one. It costs $2,600 a month. This is stupid that we do that. We have the building. Why don’t we use the people inside Montreal? They know what to do. They know the problem and I think they’re going to resolve it faster than nobody ever could.

Something else that Montrealers speak often about is the transit situation in Montreal, whether it’s the metro, the breakdowns we’ve seen on the rem, traffic. How are you going to make it easier for Montrealers to get around the city?

GT: To get around the city? With the STM, the subway and the outside, it’s so easy. First, we have a nice subway, by the way, but it takes so long. Now we’re back to money, back to coordination. Believe it or not, the blue line, we have four new stations that they are supposed to come someday. We started that project in 1988. We are in 2025. It’s not done yet. It’s not even close to being done. Can you believe it? We give the contract to people outside, and it takes time to do something in Montreal. That is the problem. Everything has to be faster. Why it is not? Because the people who are elected for the last 10 to 15 years, they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They’re just asking people from outside, please help us, help us. We don’t know what to do. How about trying somebody else like Action Montreal? You’ll see the difference. If people don’t like it, we’ll see in four years. But nobody has something to lose. Let’s get started fast November 2nd.

If Action Montreal is elected, how do you want Montreal to be in four years time?

GT: People would be happy to be in Montreal. And when you will talk to people from outside Montreal, instead of telling you, I’ll never come back in Montreal, because I am, can I say, pissed off to come there. There’s no way to get out. I mean, we turn around every street. There’s too many cycle paths. I mean, there’s no parking. There’s nothing for me in Montreal. I’ll never come back. What they gonna say? What they gonna tell you in four years? About time we have a good administration in Montreal.