Q&A: Mayor Plante on hijab controversy, decision to not run again in 2025

Valerie Plante announced last week that she will not be seeking re-election in 2025 after serving as Montreal's first female mayor since 2017.

On Thursday, she spoke to CTV News Montreal anchor Caroline Van Vlaardingen about her shocking decision, what's next for her and about a recent controversial decision to remove a poster at City Hall because it depicted a woman in a hijab.

Watch the video above for the full interview.

The article below has been edited for clarity and length.

CTV: There is a lot of talk today about the decision that you made about the poster at City Hall. As you know, some people are very unhappy with that. Although you say there was discomfort, people are saying it's a xenophobic move that these women, if they're not working in public places, they're ordinary Montrealers like the rest of us. Why remove them?

PLANTE: I don't want Montrealers to think that, you know, Montreal is not this amazing, inclusive city, that everybody's welcome to, especially at City Hall. So for me, if I can put it in perspective, this board is part of a temporary exhibit that was made to be changed along the way anyway.

The City of Montreal has decided to remove a welcome sign at city hall with a image of a woman wearing a hijab, because it has become controversial. The sign is shown on Monday, Oct.28, 2024. (Giuseppe Valiante / The Canadian Press)

For us, the objective is that everybody would feel welcome, and it feels like it missed the mark. So for us, we will be changing it along with the rest of the exhibit anyway, as it was planned before.

CTV: But will the next poster include women with hijabs or are you going to erase them?

PLANTE: It's not me that signs off on every design, every element at City Hall or in the entire city. Again, for us, it was important that people would feel welcome. It created a lot of discussion. I feel like it missed the point, and for me, this is not what we want. 

CTV: But it also makes women with hijabs and the Muslim community not feel welcome.

PLANTE: I think it's important also to put it, I would say, in a broader perspective because we're talking about one board. I don't want to minimize it, but if you look at what we've been creating, our administration admitting that, for example, there is discrimination, there is systemic racism.

The objective we've put together on creating safe spaces within the workforce at City Hall, with big objectives of having more diversity, all these things and how I've been very vocal about antisemitism and Islamophobic acts are not welcome at the City of Montreal. This is not who we are, so I hope that people see it in a bigger perspective. It's one board within a temporary exhibit, versus all the actions that our administration have put together to make sure that inclusivity continues to be part of our values.

CTV: Let's talk about your big personal decision that you announced last week. I think it surprised a lot of people, but you'd obviously been thinking about it for a long time.

PLANTE: I've always put myself to the test, asking myself constant questions since day one that I took office. That being said, I would say this decision was made less than a month ago.

After thinking about it, I just felt like I wasn't able to guarantee the exact level of energy I've always given to Montrealers in the past almost eight years.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is calling on Quebec for more resources to tackle homelessness. (CTV News)

And now I know the energy that it takes, right? It's a very demanding, high-intensity job that I love. It was a tough decision to make, but I feel like I've done a lot, we've marked our territory, we've made decisions that will change the direction Montreal is headed in. I'm willing to give the power back to other people, which I think is a good thing as well.

CTV: You say the job takes a lot of energy, and there are a lot of challenges that the city is facing with declining revenues at the same time as you have increasing homelessness, housing issues, neighbourhoods where people don't feel safe. They seem to be popping up increasingly. Are you in part leaving because you feel you can't handle these challenges with the energy you have left?

PLANTE: Well, the answer is no because I've been dealing with that in the last almost eight years. I think I've always been the kind of mayor that doesn't support the status quo, that looks around to find new solutions, find new partnerships with the Government of Quebec, because many of the issues you're naming are not only the responsibility of the mayor, and citizens expect us to work together with our partners.

When I think about homelessness and when I think about mobility, when I think about the housing crisis, those are solutions that need to be made from the city working with the provincial, federal governments. And we've accomplished some of the great things.

For example, for me, mobility, one of my greatest victories, definitely the blue line that we were able to make happen with the provincial government. But we need more of that, because Montrealers are craving for options to leave their cars home, if possible, in order to move around in that easier way.

CTV: Speaking of different levels of government and cooperation, a lot of people who know you say you love politics, and you have been named the happy warrior through many of your campaigns. Are you looking at another level of politics or perhaps working with the UN?

PLANTE: At this point, I don't know. I love so many things, you know, and I think that for me, I decided to do politics because I see it as a way of changing the world. It's one vehicle, but there's other ways, right? So right now, I'm still the mayor for a year, and like you said, there's many issues I want to concentrate on, and the year after, I guess we'll see.

There's many options but I think I will always care for Montreal. I will always care for social equity, housing, environment, of course, because this is probably the biggest legacy I'm leaving here in Montreal, how we've transformed the city with more green spaces, talking about sponge parks and stuff like that. So I will continue to change the world. But I don't know how yet.

With files from CTV Montreal's Caroline Van Vlaardingen