Michael Applebaum

At the age of 13, he began working at his eponymous family shoe store founded by his grandfather in 1913.

He studied commerce at Dawson College CEGEP, dropping out because he lost patience with a business teacher who regularly arrived late for class.

He opened his first clothing boutique at 18 while at Dawson.

He later opened a number of other businesses and took over the family shoe store.

Michael Mark Applebaum (born February 10, 1963) is a Canadian former politician who served as interim Mayor of Montreal between his appointment by the city council on November 16, 2012, and his resignation on June 18, 2013.

Applebaum was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Montreal on February 10, 1963, the third child of Ray and Moishe Applebaum.

He was raised in Saint-Laurent and went to Winston Churchill High School, where he was a quiet student.

He spent Grade 7 in a French immersion program at the English-language school, but never mastered the language.

Applebaum always wanted to become a very wealthy businessman and never expected to go into politics.

Applebaum married in 1984.

He and his wife Merle have three children.

He was involved in the Jewish community, and was supportive of Israel.

He always professed traditional Jewish values of family, working hard, and volunteering.

Applebaum was first elected city councilor for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on November 6, 1994, as a member of the now defunct Parti des Montréalais.

In 1994, Applebaum become known locally as "the rink activist" for campaigning to save a popular local outdoor hockey rink from closure at MacDonald Park in his Snowdon neighborhood.

He negotiated a compromise solution that had the city maintain the installation while local volunteers maintained the ice.

Later that year, he was elected city councilor by a margin of 31 votes in the former Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district of Montreal as a member of Jérôme Choquette's Parti des Montréalais.

In 1998, he was re-elected by a large margin as a member of Nouveau Montréal, an opposition slate headed by former Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau.

As a councillor, he relinquished his businesses and became a real estate agent at the Royal LePage realty firm to supplemented his low public salary.

He maintained a brisk, focused business, selling 48 properties in his first year alone.

Applebaum campaigned ceaselessly on cutting government waste.

He once tracked down a blue-collar worker who spent a day hiding in a luncheonette while collecting $21 an hour.

He emphasized the fiscal responsibility and integrity that came with his business experience: "I’ve been in business, and it doesn’t matter if you steal a dollar or you steal $100,000. You’re not allowed to take a penny."

In 2001, Applebaum joined other city councilors in forming the Union Montreal party under mayoral candidate Gérald Tremblay, a businessman and former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister.

Applebaum and Tremblay went on to win the 2001 election on a platform of halting the forced merger of Montreal with suburban municipalities and decentralizing power to newly created Montreal boroughs during the 2002–06 municipal reorganization of Montreal.

In 2001, he became a founding member of the Union Montréal party and rose to prominence as part of Mayor Gérald Tremblay's administration, serving as borough mayor of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce from January 1, 2002 to November 21, 2012, and becoming chair of the city's powerful executive committee in 2011.

In 2002, Mayor Tremblay would appoint Applebaum to the newly created position of borough mayor for Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

He also chaired of the borough's zoning committee (in French, Comité consultatif d'urbanisme) or CCU.

By 2002, Applebaum's overall remuneration for committee work and expenses had grown to $102,868.

They were reelected handily in 2005 and 2009, each with almost 50% of the vote.

Fellow councillors Jeremy Searle and Francine Senécal publicly criticized Applebaum in 2005 and 2008 for potential conflict of interest over his continued work as a real estate agent and property manager while also sitting on the borough's secretive CCU (zoning committee).

Applebaum once threatened to sue a citizen who pointed out that he should give up his real estate job if he wanted to sit on the CCU.

By 2006, he operated a "stratagem of corruption" in the borough, and was investigated by UPAC, Quebec's anti-corruption police force.

He was appointed interim mayor by city council after leaving the party as increased scrutiny of corruption within the administration prompted Tremblay's resignation.

Heonly gave up his realtor job and CCU position upon being appointed as a full member of the Montreal Executive Committee in 2009.

Applebaum also repeatedly rejected proposals from councillor Warren Allmand to open CCU meetings to the public and to provide documentation on CCU zoning recommendations to the public before being adopted by the borough council.

On June 17, 2013, he was arrested and indicted on 14 charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption in municipal affairs

He resigned the following day.

On January 26, 2017, Applebaum was found guilty of eight of these charges, and subsequently sentenced to a year in prison and two years probation for extorting $60 000 worth of bribes from real estate developers as borough mayor in Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce between 2006 and 2012.

On June 6, 2017, Applebaum was granted parole two months after serving one-sixth of his sentence when he admitted to his crimes.