Future Montreal's Jean-François Kacou wants to create a city for the 21st century

By Daniel J. Rowe Published: October 27, 2025 at 1:55PM EDT

CTV News anchor Mutsumi Takahashi spoke to the five main candidates for Montreal's next mayor.
Futur Montreal is led by manager and strategist Jean-François Kacou.
Mutusumi Takahashi:

“Your party says that it offers what you call a pragmatic vision for a 21st-century city's future challenges. What exactly is your vision for that 21st Century City?
Jean-François Kacou:
“First of all, our vision for Montreal is a city that moves, so that's why we want the best bus network in the world. We also want a city that takes care of its residents. This morning, we had the opportunity to announce our platform, where we announced that we want to professionalize the College of elected officials to diversify our revenue and also to invest in our food security and sovereignty, and on top of that, in our energy for the ecological transition. So this will be our vision for the Montreal of the 21st Century.”
Mutusumi Takahashi:

“The issue of linguistic rights is very important for the English community. What is your commitment to them under your administration? Will they always be guaranteed essential services in English?”
Jean-François Kacou:
“First of all, I want to emphasize the fact that a lot of our candidates are English speakers, and in Futur Montreal, we respect the right, also, of English speakers to speak their language, to feel welcome in Montreal because we are to live in peace in this city. So we are one of the few parties that have our pamphlets in the two languages: French and English. So that shows our commitment to offer services also to English people when we will be in power.”
Mutusumi Takahashi:
“What do you think is Montreal's biggest problem right now, and how would you fix it?”
Jean-François Kacou:
“We think the biggest problem here is affordability. We have, since 2019, 300,000 people leaving this city, and they left the city that they love, and it pains them in the heart. Me, myself, I experienced unaffordability in this city. What do we want to do for Futur Montreal? We want to do a levy on luxury homes, luxury houses, excluding family housing, to directly invest in nonprofits that build affordable housing. And why nonprofit? Because we think these are the organizations that will build really cheap houses that will keep Montrealers in the city that they love.”
Mutusumi Takahashi:
“If there is one single most important thing that your party is offering that the other parties are not offering, that would improve the lives of Montrealers, what is it?”
Jean-François Kacou:
“We think we need parking towers in Montreal because we also have a portrait of mobility. We want to promote the bus, yes, we want to promote the metro. We want to promote, also, the bicycle, with more secure bike lanes outside of commercial arteries. But people need their auto to drive in Montreal. We think about pregnant women, families, professionals of the construction trade, mobility-restrained people. So that's why we want to build parking towers with public-private partnerships that will increase the quality of life of Montreal and make them reconnect with their downtown.”
Mutusumi Takahashi:
“There are always so many promises during election campaigns. What assurance do we have that you will keep your promises?”
Jean-François Kacou:
“First of all, you can count on the Futur Montreal administration when we are in power. The first order of business will be to count on the conscientiousness of the elected officials on trans-partisanship. We want to focus also on operation costs, redundancies in our administration, and we want to quickly create the commission on revenue diversification so that we will have the means to keep our promises and less be dependent on property taxes. We think the Montreal of the future is a city that thinks for ourselves and diversifies our revenue.”