Futur Montreal gets official party status

By Dan Laxer The Suburban, July 23, 2025 

Last April The Suburban reported on a new municipal party. At the time, the name of the party – Futur Montréal – had been officially reserved by Élections Québec, but the party had not yet been granted official party status.
Now it has, founders Joel DeBellefeuille and Matthew Kerr announced last week.
DeBellefeuille refers to Ensemble Montréal voters as “broken and beat down,” and says Projet Montréal voters have expressed being “let down” by the current administration, “the continuous bombardment of bike paths stuffed down voters' throats.”
Kerr and DeBellefeuille both insist that Montrealer's want change. If Projet Montréal and Ensemble Montréal are two sides of the same coin, DeBellefeuille says, they feel Futur Montréal is “a viable third option.”

A two-party race, says Kerr, the party's interim leader, is “not good for democracy, it's not good for choice. It's the same parties switching hands back and forth bringing old ideas from previous campaigns and not really adapting to people's needs.”
“Our presence alone,” he adds, “will keep them accountable, and will force them to change their policies and change how they're going to maneuver in this election.”
The party's two flagship policies as reported by The Suburban last April remain in place – the Annual Borough Dividend policy and the Expropriation Policy. One would give money back to the boroughs, back to residents, and the other – the "Use it or lose it" expropriation policy – would see the city's many vacant and abandoned buildings used for affordable and social housing. “We are in a housing crisis,” DeBellefeuille says. Futur Montréal is hoping its Expropriation Policy addresses the issue.

As for other issues the party sees as of most concern to Montrealer's, Kerr feels that people are tired of hearing about bicycle paths. He says that Futur Montréal is not against bicycle paths, but that for the most part the network the city currently has is good. “It's sufficient,” he says. There are some (bicycle paths), he says, that are “questionable.”
And then there's the Cavendish Boulevard extension which, DeBellefeuille says, has remained stuck in the status quo for years, mired in debate, instead of being put into action, “making it an actual, viable path for people to travel to get to their jobs.” That's not just a policy for Futur Montréal, DeBellefeuille says, it's a project.

But what about unexpected events, like last week's widespread flash flooding after Sunday's thunderstorms deluged Montreal with between 50 to 100 mm of rain? Mayor Valerie Plante, who has just under four months left in her mandate, said in a news conference that “there are no miracle solutions.” She did say that her administration has been investing in infrastructure. And Ensemble Montréal's Soraya Martinez Ferrada said if elected mayor, she would oversee the construction of an improved drainage system.
Kerr points out that flash floods have become a yearly event. In fact, last week's flooding was the third so far this year. He says there needs to be a plan in place to prevent rather than react to flood damage. And that requires studies of flood-prone areas.
“That's why Futur Montréal is here,” DeBellefeuille adds, “to shake things up and to impose different ideas to really tackle these things, and create action.”
“We love our city, and we want to fix it,” he says. “And people are ready for that.”
Futur Montréal will put out their full program in two to three weeks.