City cuts most mobility program funding
The city has cut 90% of the funding for making public places more accessible for those with reduced mobility – places like libraries, pools and parks. The Projet administration dedicated $3 million a year to it over the last two years. This year it gets $354,000, and next year – nothing.
jeather 00:09 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
While we’re cutting costs for accessibility and public transit and cutting jobs, how much was the police budget increased by?
Tim 10:07 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
It’s really annoying when the most obvious question is unasked: what planned projects will have to be cancelled due to these cuts? Another obvious question: what work was completed with the funding under the Projet administration?
EmilyG 13:11 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
I don’t know if non-disabled people realize it, but Montreal is quite a disabled-unfriendly city, and I’m worried it’ll get worse, or at most, not improve.
Nicholas 14:50 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
Some of the participatory budget projects included ones that fit the bill: ramps to get into pools was a common one. One was put into the Benny Farm pool years ago (Tremblay era iirc) and is really nice, and I presume some of the projects proposed at other polls over the last few years happened.
Joey 15:04 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
There’s something really awful about taking a basically negligible part of the budget ($3M = 0.04% of the city’s $7.7 billion budget) to make basic city life a tiny bit more accessible to people who have no other possible source of any kind of systemic support… and choosing to spend it on debt reduction. Like, the inevitable ‘we can’t afford to improve the Rachel bike lane so we’re just gonna close it’ will be foolish and punitive and objectively terrible, but this is just morally reprehensible. Shame on the mayor.
Uatu 17:17 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
Thing is that eventually we all succumb to accessibility as we age so it’s also age discr as well
Meezly 17:44 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
Another to add to the list of nice things being taken away by Ensemble that was upheld by Project. How many here helped split that vote again…?
Kate 18:15 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
I feel, looking back, that Luc Rabouin, who had done a decent if low‑key job as mayor of Plateau borough, did not campaign hard enough or in the right way, last year. I think Rabouin felt that since Projet had had clear wins in the past, he could coast a bit, so he didn’t do enough work on understanding how Projet’s administration had annoyed some voters, and on showing how he intended to be different.
Of course vote splitting did happen. Some voters who had voted Projet in earlier elections must have decided to support Craig Sauvé’s party. I haven’t examined the numbers to see where the split for Sauvé meant Projet lost to Ensemble, but somebody should!
Ian 20:38 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
Considering how low Sauvé was polling I doubt vote splitting was much of an issue.
Besides, as has been pointed out befiore, it is not the duty of the electorate to game the system – it is the duty of the candidate to show that they are the best choice.
Joey 21:11 on 2026-02-20 Permalink
Fairly certain that Rabouin and Sauve had about as much (maybe slightly more) votes than SMF, though the assumption that all Sauve voters would switch to Rabouin strikes me as wrong. Surely some would’ve voted for SMF or someone else or stayed home.
Agreed that both as Plateau mayor and city mayoral candidate Rabouin failed to connect with voters. He seems like a smart and sensible guy, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what his ideas for the city were. If memory serves, Plante’s campaign took off after she unveiled the Pink Line – everybody knew it was unlikely to happen but there was some genuine appreciation for a bold vision for expanding the Metro. Compare and contrast with the way the REM was unveiled…