Luc Rabouin has announced he’s stepping down as the leader of Projet Montréal following Sunday’s election defeat.
Rabouin lost to Ensemble Montréal’s Soraya Martinez Ferrada in the Montreal mayoral race, ending Projet Montréal’s eight years in charge of the metropolis.
The 57-year-old told supporters he would not be asking his running mate to relinquish her seat at city hall, and that he would be stepping aside as party leader “in the coming days.”
Rabouin took “full responsibility” for the loss, and complimented Martinez Ferrada, an immigrant from Chile, on her victory.
“Even though she and I don’t share the same vision for the city, I want to acknowledge that her victory today is historic for the Latin-American community and for all Montreal immigrants.”
A self-described ecologist, Rabouin ran a campaign promising to tackle homelessness with transitional housing; increase social housing; revive tramway projects in the East End; centralize planning of construction projects; and increase the city’s climate resilience.
He pitched himself as someone deeply familiar with the innerworkings of city hall, having spent the past six years on the executive committee overseeing the city’s finances.
But in an election where Montrealers sought considerable change, it’s possible Rabouin did not do enough to position himself as a new voice.
WATCH: Projet Montréal retains influence despite losing mayoralty
During the campaign, Rabouin attempted to thread a needle between offering better solutions to solve the city’s major crises like homelessness and affordability, while also defending controversial policies such as the expansion of bike lanes, green-lighting infrastructure projects leading to a proliferation of orange cones, a ban on short-term rentals – all policies implemented under the Valérie Plante administration, which he served in.
Sunday’s defeat marks the end of Projet Montréal’s reign at city hall after Plante led the party to victory in 2017 and 2021 to become the city’s first woman mayor. Rabouin won the party’s leadership race in March after Plante announced last fall she would not be seeking re-election for a third term.
Rabouin served two terms as borough mayor for Plateau—Mont-Royal, first winning the race in 2019 after Luc Ferrandez’s resignation. He was then re-elected in 2021 with nearly 75 per cent of the vote.
