Tenant rights: Luc Rabouin promises to increase fines for Montreal landlords who offer substandard housing
Posted October 28, 2025 1:26 pm.
Last Updated October 28, 2025 4:13 pm.
Increasing fines for substandard housing and creating a support program for evicted tenants are among a list of new campaign promises from Projet Montréal’s Luc Rabouin aimed at supporting tenants in Montreal.
If elected mayor, Rabouin is vowing to implement those measures and more to ensure “people who live here in Montreal… can stay here, live with dignity.”
Also included in Tuesday’s announcement is a plan to tax vacant housing units, with the goal of bringing them back onto the rental market. Projet Montréal estimates this would generate $21 million in revenue over three years.
In addition to fining landlords offering substandard housing and creating a support program for evicted tenants through the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL), Rabouin is also promising to increase municipal interventions against negligent landlords; establish a rent assistance fund that would give microloans to struggling families; and more support for housing committees.
The measures were all already included in the party’s financial framework, which was presented last week.
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“When two-thirds of Montrealers are renters, including seniors, we have to make sure we protect them. Protect them from speculation, from insecurity, from the fear of losing their home. We’ve managed to make progress. In the next mandate we want to go even further,” said Rabouin, who made the announcement at the Mont-Carmel seniors’ residence in downtown Montreal.
Mont-Carmel seniors fought with their landlord for two years to avoid eviction. The landlord wanted to convert the residence into condominiums.
“I don’t think people standing behind me want us to go backwards or for Montreal to go backwards,” Rabouin said of the seniors. “I think Montrealers want to go forward. We’re moving forward for Montrealers, for people who live in our city, who live in our neighbourhoods, who want to stay in Montreal. We want to help them. And we want them to stay here as long as they’re in Montreal.”
