JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West
Michel Gibson is seeking a fourth term as mayor of Kirkland in the upcoming November election.
The veteran politician confirmed his decision to run during a call with The 1510 West last week, but declined to comment until making an official announcement in early August.
Gibson has held the top elected seat in Kirkland for 12 years, after spending several years as a councillor. He was first elected mayor in 2013, beating incumbent John Meaney by 500 votes – a difference of just 6.7 per cent. He was acclaimed in 2017, and went on to sweep the 2021 election with more than 83 per cent of the vote.
His tenure has been marked by careful fiscal management. Annual increases in the town’s spending and residential property tax increases have kept pace with inflation since 2014, even as the Montreal Agglomeration’s slice of the town’s budget has increased gradually each year. At the same time, the municipality’s debt has more than halved since Gibson first entered office, dropping to $17.1 million in 2024 from $36.5 million in 2014.
Gibson has also sat on numerous committees on the Montreal Agglomeration council, as well as the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, where he collaborated on such initiatives as the development of the West Island branch of the REM commuter train network and the adoption of the Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (PMAD) 2026-2046.
Under Gibson’s leadership, Kirkland voted to keep its bilingual status in 2023, which would have been lost under the province’s Bill 96, which updated Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, as fewer than 50 per cent of residents had listed English as their mother tongue in the 2021 federal census. The town also took part in a court challenge along with 22 other bilingual municipalities this past fall, calling for the suspension of several sections of the language law, arguing that it was unfairly intruding into how municipalities communicate with residents. The challenge was ultimately dismissed by the Quebec Superior Court.
No other candidates have yet publicly announced their intention to enter the race for mayor this fall.